A novel gas sensor based on field ionization from ZnO nanowires: moderate working voltage and high stability.

We report a kind of gas sensor using ZnO nanowires as the field ionization anode. The sharp tips of nanowires generate very high electric fields at relatively low voltages. The sensors show good sensitivity and selectivity. Moreover, the detection limitation of the field ionization based ZnO nanowire gas sensors is about 5%. More importantly, a sensor with ZnO nanowires as the anode exhibits an impressive performance with respect to stability and anti-oxidation behavior, which are significantly better than those of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as electrodes. Therefore, the simple, low-cost, sensors described here could be deployed for a variety of applications.