Gas permeable silver nanowire electrode for realizing vertical type sensitive gas sensor

Abstract

We successfully demonstrated a Poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) diode gas sensor with silver nanowires as a gas permeable top electrode. The silver nanowires dispersed in isopropyl alcohol (IPA) were used to form a top electrode by a simple drop-casting method. The meshes between nanowires enable gas molecules pass through the electrode and diffuse into the underlying organic sensing layer to dope or dedope the organic semiconductor. Here, the proposed sensor successfully detects ammonia down to 30 parts-per-billion (ppb), which is sensitive enough in many applications including breath ammonia monitoring as a point-of-care application. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.