Abstract
In this work, a gas sensor is fabricated from polycrystalline nickel cobaltite nano films deposited on transparent substrates by closed-field unbalanced dual-magnetrons (CFUBDM) co-sputtering technique. Two targets of nickel and cobalt are mounted on the cathode of discharge system and co-sputtered by direct current (DC) argon discharge plasma in presence of oxygen as a reactive gas. The total gas pressure is 0.5 mbar and the mixing ratio of Ar:O2 gases is 5:1. The characterization measurements performed on the prepared films show that their transmittance increases with the incident wavelength, the polycrystalline structure includes 5 crystallographic planes, the average particle size is about 35 nm, the electrical conductivity is linearly increasing with increasing temperature, and the activation energy is about 0.41 eV. These films show high sensitivity to ethanol vapor.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
J. G. Kim, D. L. Pugmire, D. Battaglia, and M. A. Langell, “Analysis of the NiCo2O4 spinel surface with Auger and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy,” Applied Surface Science, 2000, 165(1): 70–84.
F. Iacomi, G. Calin, C. Scarlat, M. Irimia, C. Doroftei, M. Dobromir, et al., “Functional properties of nickel cobalt oxide thin films,” Thin Solid Films, 2011, 520(1): 651–655.
S. K. Chang, Z. Zainal, K. B. Tan, and N. A. Yusof, “Surface morphology and crystallinity of metal oxides in nickel-cobalt binary system,” Sains Malaysiana, 2012, 41(4): 465–470.
O. A. Hamadi, “Characteristics of CdO-Si heterostructure produced by plasma-induced bonding technique,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part L: Journal of Materials Design & Applications, 2008, 222(1): 65–71.
O. A. Hamadi, “Effect of annealing on the electrical characteristics of CdO-Si heterostructure produced by plasma-induced bonding technique,” Iraqi Journal of Applied Physics, 2008, 4(3): 34–37.
R. Ding, L. Qai, and H. Y. Wang, “Scalable electrodeposition of cost-effective microsized NiCo2O4 electrode materials for practical applications in electrochemical capacitors,” ECS Electrochem Letters, 2012, 1(3): A43–A46.
M. Hussain, Z. H. Ibupoto, M. A. Abbasi, X. J. Liu, O. Nur, and M. Willander, “Synthesis of three dimensional nickel cobalt oxide nanoneedles on nickel foam, their characterization and glucose sensing application,” Sensors, 2014, 14(3): 5415–5425.
M. Y. Ho, P. S. Khiew, D. Isa, T. K. Tan, W. S. Chiu, and C. H. Chia, “A review of metal oxide composite electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors,” Nano, 2014, 9(6): 1430002-1–1430002-25.
O. A. Hammadi, “Photovoltaic properties of thermally-grown selenium-doped silicon photodiodes for infrared detection applications,” Photonic Sensors, 2015, 5(2): 152–158.
O. A. Hammadi and N. E. Naji, “Electrical and spectral characterization of CdS/Si heterojunction prepared by plasma-induced bonding,” Optical and Quantum Electronics, 2016, 48(8): 1–7.
S. U. Offiah, A. C. Nwanya, S. C. Ezugwu, B. T. Sone, R. U. Osuji, M. Maaza, et al., “Chemical bath synthesis and physico-chemical characterizations of NiO-CoO composite thin films for supercapacitor applications,” International Journal of Electrochemical Science, 2014, 9(10): 5837–5848.
W. W. Liu, C. Lu, K. Liang, and B. Tay, “A three dimensional vertically aligned multiwall carbon nanotube/NiCo2O4 core/shell structure for novel high-performance supercapacitors,” Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2014, 2(14): 5100–5107.
N. A. Bakr, S. A. Salman, and A. M. Shano, “Effect of Co doping on structural and optical properties of NiO thin films prepared by chemical spray pyrolysis method,” International Letters of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, 2015, 2: 15–30.
O. A. Hammadi, “Characterization of SiC/Si heterojunction fabricated by plasma-induced growth of nanostructured silicon carbide layer on silicon surface,” Iraqi Journal of Applied Physics, 2016, 12(2): 9–13.
N. S. Umeokwonna, A. J. Ekpunobi, and P. I. Ekwo, “Effect of cobalt doping on the optical properties of nickel cobalt oxide nanofilms deposited by electrodeposition method,” International Journal of Technical Research and Applications, 2015, 3(4): 347–351.
S. Sahoo, S. Ratha, and C. S. Rout, “Spinel NiCo2O4 nanorods for supercapacitor applications,” American Journal of Engineering & Applied Sciences, 2015, 8(3): 371–379.
O. A. Hammadi, “Characteristics of heat-annealed silicon homojunction infrared photodetector fabricated by plasma-assisted technique,” Photonic Sensors, 2016, 6(4): 345–350.
O. A. Hammadi, M. K. Khalaf, F. J. Kadhim, and B. T. Chiad, “Operation characteristics of a closed-field unbalanced dual-magnetrons plasma sputtering system,” Bulgarian Journal of Physics, 2014, 41(1): 24–33.
O. A. Hammadi, M. K. Khalaf, and F. J. Kadhim, “Silicon nitride nanostructures prepared by reactive sputtering using closed-field unbalanced dual magnetrons,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part L: Journal of Materials Design & Applications, 2017, 231(5): 479–487.
O. A. Hammadi, M. K. Khalaf, and F. J. Kadhim, “Fabrication of UV photodetector from nickel oxide nanoparticles deposited on silicon substrate by closed-field unbalanced dual magnetron sputtering techniques,” Optical & Quantum Electronics, 2015, 47(2): 1–9.
O. A. Hammadi, M. K. Khalaf, and F. J. Kadhim, “Fabrication and characterization of UV photodetectors based on silicon nitride nanostructures prepared by magnetron sputtering,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part N: Journal of Nanoengineering & Nanosystems, 2015, 230(1): 32–36.
A. A. Anber and F. J. Kadhim, “Preparation of nanostructured SixN1-x thin films by DC reactive magnetron sputtering for tribology applications,” Silicon, 2017, pp. 1–4.
M. A. Hameed and Z. M. Jabbar, “Preparation and characterization of silicon dioxide nanostructures by DC reactive closed-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering,” Iraqi Journal of Applied Physics, 2016, 12(4): 13–18.
Acknowledgment
Authors would like to thank people at Plasma-Processing Lab at University of Central Oklahoma (USA) for the experimental assistance during the work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
About this article
Cite this article
Hammadi, O.A., Naji, N.E. Characterization of polycrystalline nickel cobaltite nanostructures prepared by DC plasma magnetron co-sputtering for gas sensing applications. Photonic Sens 8, 43–47 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13320-017-0460-y
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13320-017-0460-y