Hydrogen Sensing Properties of Copper-Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films

A highly sensitive hydrogen gas sensor has been developed utilizing 3% copper-doped zinc oxide thin films. These films were deposited using pulsed laser deposition technique on quartz substrates with predeposited interdigitated platinum electrodes. The deposited films were characterized by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. The hydrogen sensing properties of the sensor were studied at three operating temperatures, viz., 50 °C, 100 °C, and 150 °C. We observed that the sensor shows good performance even at a low operating temperature of 50 °C for a very small concentration of hydrogen (10 ppm).