Preparation of NiO two-dimensional grainy films and their high-performance gas sensors for ammonia detection

Semiconductor NiO two-dimensional grainy films on glass substrates are shown to be an ammonia-sensing devices with excellent comprehensive performance, such as the good stability, short response time, outstanding recovery performance, excellent sensitivity, and selectivity. The morphology and structure analysis of gas sensing materials indicated that the as-fabricated NiO films was uniform and highly ordered porous structure on substrates, which composed of small size particles with diameters ranging from 8 to 30 nm. The shells of these particles were ultrathin amorphous NiO plates, and the core of each particle was face-centered cubic single crystal structure. In the gas sensing performance tests, we found that the excellent electron transport and interconnection properties of sensing films improved the stability and recovery performance of sensors, and porous surface structure increased the specific surface area of sensing films leading to fast response and excellent sensitivity for sensors. Meanwhile, this sensors owned outstanding selectivity toward ammonia which could be because NiO-sensing films had higher binding affinity for the electron-donating ammonia.