Laterally grown SnO2 nanowires and their NO2 gas sensing characteristics

One dimensional semiconducting nanomaterials have attracted considerable interest for their potential as the building blocks for fabricating various nanodevices. In this paper, a simple and efficient way of preparing highly sensitive SnO₂ nanowire-based gas sensor without an arduous lithography process was studied. The SnO₂ nanowires could be grown laterally upon the Si substrate by separating the Au catalyst layer in the substrate. As the electric current is transported along the networks of the nanowires, not along the bottom layer on the substrate, the sensitivity to gases was maximized in this lateral-type structures.