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Updated: May 24, 2025

Tuning Oxide Properties by Oxygen Vacancy Control During Growth and Annealing
Published on: June 9, 2023
Interplay between CO and Surface Lattice Oxygen Ions in the Vacancy-Mediated Response Mechanism of SnO2-Based Gas
Stefan Kucharski1,2, Michael Vorochta3, Lesia Piliai3
1Department of Chemistry, University College London, 20 Gower St, London WC1H 0AJ, U.K.
Abstract:
Despite having been commercially available for more than half a century, conductometric gas sensors still lack a definite description of their operation mechanism, which hinders research into improving their characteristics. With the advent of operando spectroscopy comes the opportunity to elucidate their working principle by observing their surface during sensing. To that end, we have employed near-ambient pressure (NAP) XPS with simultaneous resistance measurements to correlate the macroscopic sensor response with atomistic changes to the sensor's surface under exposure to CO, a common target gas. Our results show a clear relationship between the sensor response and the change in surface stoichiometry of SnO2, suggesting that near-surface oxygen vacancies play a vital role in the sensing mechanism, in support of a vacancy-modulated "surface conductivity" mechanism.
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