Low power consumption pressure sensor based on carbon nanotubes

Here, we have shown that the current through the films made from nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (NCNTs) changes as the pressure is varied between 93 and 1000 mbar. The change is due to adsorption and desorption of ambient oxygen. Interestingly, the devices show good responsivity even when the power is in microwatts range. Over all, a low cost and low power pressure sensor made from NCNTs were fabricated and their usefulness was demonstrated. We believe the same can also be used as an oxygen sensor.Here, we have shown that the current through the films made from nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (NCNTs) changes as the pressure is varied between 93 and 1000 mbar. The change is due to adsorption and desorption of ambient oxygen. Interestingly, the devices show good responsivity even when the power is in microwatts range. Over all, a low cost and low power pressure sensor made from NCNTs were fabricated and their usefulness was demonstrated. We believe the same can also be used as an oxygen sensor.

[1]  Liming Wu,et al.  A practical vacuum sensor based on a ZnO nanowire array , 2010, Nanotechnology.

[2]  G. Myneni,et al.  Carbon nanotube electron source based ionization vacuum gauge , 2004 .

[3]  Liwei Lin,et al.  An electrothermal carbon nanotube gas sensor. , 2007, Nano letters.

[4]  Jongbaeg Kim,et al.  Batch-processed carbon nanotube wall as pressure and flow sensor , 2010, Nanotechnology.

[5]  K. Nanda,et al.  Growth of branched carbon nanotubes with doped/un-doped intratubular junctions by one-step co-pyrolysis , 2013 .

[6]  Mitsuteru Kimura,et al.  Proposal of a new structural thermal vacuum sensor with diode-thermistors combined with a micro-air-bridge heater , 2007, Microelectron. J..

[7]  T. M. Berlicki,et al.  Thermal vacuum sensor with compensation of heat transfer , 2001 .

[8]  Parikshit Sahatiya,et al.  Eraser-based eco-friendly fabrication of a skin-like large-area matrix of flexible carbon nanotube strain and pressure sensors. , 2017, Nanotechnology.

[9]  Joseph Zyss,et al.  SU-8 waveguiding interferometric micro-sensor for gage pressure measurement , 2007 .

[10]  F. A. Khalid,et al.  Carbon nanotube—cuprous oxide composite based pressure sensors , 2012 .

[11]  S. Chang,et al.  A ZnO nanowire vacuum pressure sensor , 2008, Nanotechnology.

[12]  J. Sun,et al.  A vacuum pressure sensor based on ZnO nanobelt film , 2011, Nanotechnology.

[13]  S. A. Moiz,et al.  Pressure sensitive organic sensor based on CNT-VO2 (3fl) composite , 2014 .

[14]  Fengtian Zhang,et al.  A micro-Pirani vacuum gauge based on micro-hotplate technology , 2006 .

[15]  Hejun Du,et al.  Paper/Carbon Nanotube-Based Wearable Pressure Sensor for Physiological Signal Acquisition and Soft Robotic Skin. , 2017, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[16]  Ming Qin,et al.  A silicon directly bonded capacitive absolute pressure sensor , 2007 .

[17]  Xing Yang,et al.  A Flexible and Highly Sensitive Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor Based on Micropatterned Films Coated with Carbon Nanotubes , 2016 .

[18]  Gas sensing with long, diffusively contacted single-walled carbon nanotubes. , 2009, Nanotechnology.

[19]  H. Porte,et al.  Imbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer integrated in micromachined silicon substrate for pressure sensor , 1999 .

[20]  S. Iijima.  Helical microtubules of graphitic carbon , 1991, Nature.

[21]  Simulation and fabrication of carbon nanotubes field emission pressure sensors , 2006 .