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- 2011 (2) (entfernen)
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- Ellipsometry (2) (entfernen)
In this work, thin iron doped tin oxide layers (3–6 nm) were investigated with regard to gas sensitivity by means of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect with ellipsometric readout. The experimental set-up was a Kretschmann configuration with gold as metal layer. The sensor system was exposed to different concentrations of methane in the low ppm range and the sensor response of an uncoated gold layer compared to a gold layer coated with iron doped tin oxide. The additional layer effects stability with regard to drift behavior of the sensor and an increase in sensitivity. Furthermore, the sensor is able to detect the toxic gas carbon monoxide in low concentration range (down to 0.5 ppm). The thin layers were investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary electron microscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The possible mechanisms taking place on the surface are discussed.
An ellipsometric gas sensor based on the surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of ~ 43 nm thick gold layers was investigated. To protect the gold layer from contamination and to improve the detection limits, the gold layers were top-coated with 5–6 nm thick layers of organic a-C:H or with inorganic metal oxides TiO2 or ZrO2. The additional layers increased the long-term stability, whereas the metal oxide layers protect better than a-C:H. Furthermore, the additional layers decreased the detection limits by one order of magnitude in case of a-C:H and two orders of magnitude in case of the oxides. It could be shown that the detection limits also depend on the kind of preparation (sol–gel process or physical vapour deposition) of the additional layers.