Combinational physical synthesis methodology and crystal features correlated with oxidizing gas detection ability of one-dimensional ZnO–VO x crystalline hybrids

One-dimensional ZnO–V2O3 and ZnO–V2O5 core–shell heterostructures were synthesized by growing V2O3 and V2O5 crystallites on ZnO nanostructures, respectively. The substantial difference between the crystal morphology and the crystalline quality of sputtering-deposited V2O3 and V2O5 crystallites led to different NO2 gas sensing responses of the sensors composed of ZnO–V2O3 and ZnO–V2O5 heterostructures. Compared with the sensor composed of the ZnO–V2O5 heterostructures, an extremely high NO2 gas sensing response was observed for the sensor composed of the ZnO–V2O3 heterostructures because of their granular crystallite features and more defective crystal quality.