Ambient temperature operated acetaldehyde vapour detection of spray deposited cobalt doped zinc oxide thin film.

Undoped and Co-doped ZnO thin films were prepared by a home built spray pyrolysis method. X-ray diffraction results indicate that both undoped and Co-doped ZnO have a polycrystalline nature and a preferential orientation peak in the (002) plane. From a field-emission scanning electron micrographs of annealed films, a uniform distribution of nanoparticles along with nanorods was observed. UV-Visible measurement indicated that all the films are transparent in the visible region. The electrical resistance was also reported. The acetaldehyde sensing behaviour of the prepared undoped and Co-doped ZnO thin films was studied using the chemi-resistive method at ambient temperature (∼30 °C). In the presence of 10 ppm of acetaldehyde vapour, the Co-doped ZnO thin films showed good sensing response of 74% with fast response and recovery time of 3 s and 110 s respectively.