Study the Effect of Copper Oxide Nanorods Enhanced by Silver Nanoparticles on the Highly Sensitive Gas Sensor

In this paper, ammonia (NH3) gas sensitivity was enhanced by the development of highly dense copper oxide (CuO) nanorods on glass substrates. The layer of copper (Cu) was deposited using a vacuum thermal evaporation method. The grown layer of Cu was sequentially inserted into an oxidation furnace at (400 °C) for (120 min) under atmospheric pressure to produce copper oxide (CuO) nanorods. Silver (Ag) nanoparticles- deposited copper oxide nanoparticles were successfully enhanced via a photo assisted spray pyrolysis technique. A metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) NH3 gas sensor with aluminum (Al) contact electrodes was fabricated on CuO nanorods. The structure of the crystal as well as the morphology of the CuO nanorods were evaluated with field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction, and UV-visible spectroscopy respectively. In order to create a high-performing MSM NH3 gas sensor, silver nanoparticles (NPs) were sprayed by the photo-assisted spray pyrolysis technique on the CuO nanorods, which are produced via the vacuum thermal evaporation method. The results showed that the modified CuO nanorods by Ag nanoparticles demonstrated great sensitivity to NH3 gas might be much improved, and the sensitivity rises from (376.4 to 700 %) , fast response and recovery times about (10.4 and 9.5 s) respectively to NH3 gas.