The Properties and Sensing Mechanism of PdNPs-decorated Silicon Nanobelt Devices for H2 Sensing at Room Temperature

This study reports the properties and the sensing mechanism of Pd nanoparticles (PdNPs) decorated n+/n-/n+ double-junction silicon nanobelt (SNB) device as hydrogen (H2) gas sensor. The SNB devices are prepared via CMOS process. Plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) is adopted for PdNPs deposition as sensing material on the Al2O3 dielectric of SNB devices.PEALD of PdNPs provides high conformity and fine control of the particle size. The PdNPs-decorated SNB devices working at room temperature are characterizedat H2 concentration ranging from 10 to 1000 ppm. Instead of using the traditional steady-state response, the slope of response and the corresponding sensing mechanism are presented to estimate concentration and shorten the response time. More than 60 % improvement in response time has been achieved for 10 to 1000 ppm H2 detection. To reduce recovery time, device localized Joule heating (DLJH) with a bias of 11 V for 240 s is demonstrated to restore the device back to the baseline.At a bias of 1 V, H2 sensing at room temperature consumes only 68.39 μW.