title: High Zr doping effects on the microstructural and optical properties of Mn3O4thin films along with ethanol sensing.
abstract: Transition metal oxides as transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) films, with high optical transparency (≥82%), various valence states and p-type conductivity are used in a several physical domains. This work covers the physical study of Zr doped Mn3O4semiconductor thin films using a spray pyrolysis method where Zr content varies in starting solutions from 0 to 20at.%. The impact of this work is to offer some understanding of microscopic effects of relatively high doping Zr and then correlate these effects with the macroscopic properties for interesting applications especially gas sensor. In fact, the addition of Zr ions pointed out the reduction of crystallite size (24.1 (nm)) with 20at.% doping allowing a better adsorption of gas molecules. In addition, it promotes the increase of optical gap (2.92eV) with 6at.% doping which is a useful parameter for some optical devices. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and EDAX techniques were used. It is found that these films crystallized in spinel type tetragonal hausmmanite structure. The gas sensing activity of these thin films (0, 6, 12 and 20at.% Zr) was examined with Ethanol. The performances of these last four sensing layers were compared. All the tests were performed at different working temperatures Twork=125, 150, 175 and 225°C and under two gas concentrations: 0.1% and 0.5% ethanol using dry air as carrier gas. The films exhibited noticeably ethanol sensing especially the sample doped with 6% of zirconium exhibits the most excellent sensing performance since it showed a clear response already at a low ethanol concentration of 0.1%.
authors: Unité de physique des dispositifs a semi-conducteurs, Faculté des sciences de Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia; Faculté des Sciences de Bizerte, Zarzouna 702, Bizerte, Carthage University, Tunisia. Electronic address: bensaidlilia@gmail.com.
authors: L Ben
authors: LB
authors: Said
authors: Laboratoire de physique des matériaux Lamellaires et nano-matériaux, hybrides (LPMLNMH), Faculté des Sciences de Bizerte, Zarzouna 702, Bizerte,Carthage University, Tunisia.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Inoubli
authors: Université de Carthage, Laboratoire des Matériaux, Molécules et Applications - IPEST, BP 51, La Marsa, 2070 Tunis, Tunisia.
authors: B
authors: B
authors: Bouricha
authors: Unité de physique des dispositifs a semi-conducteurs, Faculté des sciences de Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia.
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Amlouk
keywords: Crystal structure; Mn3O4; Optical gap blue-shift; Sensing activity; Spray pyrolysis; Zr doping; p-type TCO