Preparation of NiO-In2O3 Ordered Porous Thin Film Materials With Enhanced n-Propanol Gas Sensing Properties

In this paper, a metal-semiconductor ordered porous film-based n-propanol gas sensor with high sensitivity, fast response and recovery was prepared by a simple self-assembly method at the gas/liquid interface. In this work, polystyrene microspheres (PSs) with a diameter of 1000 nm were selected as a self-sacrificing template, NiO and In
₂
O
₃
as semiconductor gas-sensitive materials, and the performance of the prepared sensor was tested. The response of the pure In
₂
O
₃
thin-film sensor to 100 ppm n-propanol gas is about 11.4 at an operating temperature of 275°C, while the modified NiO-In
₂
O
₃
thin-film sensor can achieve an exciting response of 60 to 100 ppm of the test gas. In addition, both sensors have ultra-short response and recovery times (3s/4s for pure In
₂
O
₃
sensors, 2s/8s for NiO-In
₂
O
₃
sensors). The excellent sensing performance depends mainly on the special structure of the thin film material and the heterojunction formed by doping with NiO.