Micro-nano-technologies of zinc and copper oxides for sensor and medicine applications

The combination of sensors and biosensors with medicine and life science promises to yield extremely innovative and revolutionary advances in healthcare. In this work we report on micro- and nano-technologies for copper and zinc oxides crystalline structures. The detailed morphological study of Sn-doped ZnO nanostructured films and CuO nanowire (NW) networks for gas sensing and medicine applications are presented. ZnO based devices demonstrated good hydrogen response (Rair/Rgas ~ 3.4 to 50 ppm) with fast response and recovery times (2.7 s and 6.1 s, respectively) at operating temperature of 250 °C. In the case of CuO NW networks was observed an ethanol response (Rgas/Rair ~ 2.8 to 50 ppm) at the same operating temperature. Both sets of samples showed excellent repeatability and stability with complete recovery to initial baseline. Reported results serves as the basis for further investigations in field of biosensors and integration in biochips.