Dry air effects on the copper oxides sensitive layers formation for ethanol vapor detection

The copper oxide films have been deposited by thermal evaporation and annealed under ambient air and dry air respectively, at different temperatures. The structural characteristics of the films were investigated by X-ray diffraction. They showed the presences of two hydroxy-carbonate minerals of copper for annealing temperatures below 250 °C. Above this temperature the conductivity measurements during the annealing process, show a transition phase from metallic copper to copper oxides. The copper oxides sensitivity toward ethanol were performed using conductivity measurements at the working temperature of 200 °C. A decrease of conductivity was observed under ethanol vapor, showing the p-type semi-conducting characters of obtained copper oxide films. It was found that the sensing properties of copper oxide toward ethanol depend mainly on the annealing conditions. The best responses were obtained with copper layers annealed under dry air.