Assembly of hybrid silver-titania thin films for gas sensors

In this work, we report about the synthesis of silver-titanium dioxide nanostructures and their usage for building up thin films. We shows that nanoparticles of titania enveloped by very thin silver layer were obtained. In addition, these particles were suitable to obtain an active layer for solid-state gas sensor. In particular, we investigate the electrical modifications following the exposure to reactive gases of obtained films. In this way, the sensing performances of active layers were evaluated. The whole sensing characterization was carried out on thin films deposited on alumina and completely processed by microelectronic standard procedures. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.