The Effect of Various ZnO Layer towards Sensing Performance as an Electrolyte-Insulator-Semiconductor pH Sensor

Abstract

Multilayers zinc oxide thin films were synthesized by the sol–gel spin coating process to fabricate sensing membranes in an electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor (EIS) sensor for pH detection. The effect of various layers (single, three and five layers) on the crystallinity, morphological and optical properties of ZnO films were investigated by XRD, FE-SEM, and Photoluminescence respectively. The ZnO thin films grown were polycrystalline with hexagonal wurtzite structure. The films were not smooth, with grains and porosity in between them, and become denser as film thickness increased. The PL spectra exhibit two main emission peaks at near band edge 360-380 nm region (strong and sharp UV radiation) and 450–600 nm region (broad blue, green, and yellow radiation). Sensitivity, linearity was measured to determine the sensing and reliability performance of fabricated devices. The result confirmed that, the sensitivity for the three samples increased with increased layer from 48.3 mV/pH to 82.58 mV/pH. Compared to single and three layers of the ZnO electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor (EIS), ZnO grown with five layers exhibits a higher sensitivity of 82.58 mV/pH in solutions from pH 2–12 and linearity of 99.015 %. This is due to the increased of ZnO thickness, which produces dense surface and a well-crystallized grain structure.