Enhancement of vanadium oxide doped Eu+3 for gas sensor application

Abstract

Thin films of vanadium oxide nanoparticles doped with different concentrations of europium oxide (2, 4, 6, and 8) wt % are deposited on glass and Si substrates with orientation (111) utilizing by pulsed laser deposition technique using Nd:YAG laser that has a wavelength of 1064 nm, average frequency of 6 Hz and pulse duration of 10 ns. The films were annealed in air at 300 °C for two hours, then the structural, morphological and optical properties are characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and UV-Vis spectroscopy respectively. The X-ray diffraction results of V2O5:Eu2O3 exhibit that the film has apolycrystalline monoclinic V2O5 and triclinic V4O7 phases. The FESEM image shows a homogeneous pattern and confirms the formation of uniform nanostructures on the glass substrate. The type of the particle found nanoparticles with different doping concentrations of Eu2O3. The optical energy gap increases with the increase of doping concentration and it varies from 2.67 eV to 2.71 eV. The prepared thin films are used to fabricate sensor against nitrogen dioxide gas. The dependence of sensitivity and response time on doping ratio and operation temperature of gas sensors has been studied, the maximum sensitivity was about 100%, the response time is equal to 24s and recovery time 16s for V2O5 doped 2% Eu2O3 at 50 °C.