A vapor-sensitive chemiresistor fabricated with planar microelectrodes and a Langmuir-Blodgett organic semiconductor film

A vapor-sensing method has been developed which is compatible with monolithic silicon microelectronics technology. Specifically, electronic conductance changes caused by vapor interactions with very thin films of organic semiconductors are shown to be sensitive, reproducible, rapid, and stable chemical detectors. Functionalized copper phthalocyanine multilayer films deposited by the Langmuir-Blodgett technique onto planar microelectrode arrays can easily detect ammonia at sub-ppm concentration levels.