ECO-FRIENDLY FABRICATION OF SUSPENDED 1D NANOHEATERS FOR ULTRALOW POWER TCD-TYPE GAS SENSORS

Abstract

We developed a simple and eco-friendly fabrication method of a suspended 1D nanoheater for ultralow power thermal conductivity detector (TCD)-type gas sensors. The nanoheater was fabricated through selective metal deposition on the unique suspended carbon nanogrid, which acted as a shadow mask during the metal deposition process. Consequently, the nanoheaters can be fabricated using only a simple four-step microscale batch process (photolithography–pyrolysis–photolithography–metallization) without using any harmful etching. Due to the high surface-to-volume ratio and small size of the nanoheater, the nanoheater-based TCD-type gas sensor enabled ultrafast gas detection, facilitating pulse-width modulation-based sensor operation at 300 nW.