Synthesis of a Novel In₂O₃-InN Bottle Nanotube Using In-Situ Partial Oxidation with Enhanced Gas Sensing Platform to Detect NO₂

Abstract

A brand-new gas sensor nanocomposite, In2O3-InN, was synthesized by in-situ partial oxidation of InN and presented fast response–recovery property for NO2 detecting. The structure and morphology of the samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and energy-dispersive X-ray detection (EDX) analysis. The results show that the final In2O3-InN composites were composed of hexagonal type In2O3 and hexagonal type InN, which exhibited bottle nanotube structure on the relative macroscopic level. Microscopically, at the interface of In2O3 and InN, n–n hetero junction formed. Works form gas sensing property found that it is obviously that In2O3-InN got a quite stronger response, 1021, at relatively lower temperature, 100 °C, comparing to pure In2O3, 279.1 at 150 °C. After doping, the gas-sensing performance was improved. By analyzing the concentration of oxygen vacation and n–n hetero junctions mechanism, it was verified that the superiority of gas sensing properties of the In2O3-InN can be attributed to the high concentration of oxygen vacancies and the formation of n–n hetero junctions.

Keywords

• In₂O₃-InN
• composite material
• gas sensor
• NO₂