Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical: Hithesh K. Gatty, Simon Leijonmarck, Mikael Antelius, Göran Stemme, Niclas Roxhed
Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical: Hithesh K. Gatty, Simon Leijonmarck, Mikael Antelius, Göran Stemme, Niclas Roxhed
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: A MEMS-based amperometric nitric oxide (NO) gas sensor is reported in this paper. The sensor is designed
Received 4 August 2014 to detect NO gas for the purpose of asthma monitoring. The unique property of this sensor lies in the
Received in revised form 31 October 2014 combination of a microporous high-surface area electrode that is coated with NafionTM , together with a
Accepted 4 November 2014
liquid electrolyte. The sensor is able to detect gas concentrations of the order of parts-per-billion (ppb)
Available online 15 December 2014
and has a measured NO sensitivity of 0.045 nA/ppb and an operating range between 25 and 65% relative
humidity. The settling time of the sensor is measured to 8 s. The selectivity to interfering gases such as
Keywords:
ammonia (NH3 ) and carbon monoxide (CO) was high when placing an activated carbon fiber filter above
Nitric oxide
Amperometric
the sensor. The ppb-level detection capability of this sensor combined with its relatively fast response,
NafionTM high selectivity to CO and NH3 makes the sensor potentially applicable in gas monitoring for asthma
MEMS detection.
Gas sensor © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2. Sensor design
∗ Corresponding author at: Micro and Nanosystems, Osquldas väg 10, SE-100 44
Stockholm, Sweden. Tel.: +46 87909143. The sensor design is based on the principle of amperometric
E-mail address: roxhed@kth.se (N. Roxhed). detection of an NO analyte as illustrated in Fig. 1. The working,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2014.11.147
0925-4005/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
640 H.K. Gatty et al. / Sensors and Actuators B 209 (2015) 639–644
Fig. 2. 3D illustration of the working electrode die. The illustration shows the grid
pattern where the micropores are etched through the silicon wafer resulting in a
Fig. 1. Conceptual drawing of the three electrode electrochemical sensor showing
high surface area. The inset picture shows a SEM image of the microporous grid.
the nanoporous structure of the NafionTM layer covering the working electrode.
reference and counter electrodes together with the electrolyte con- image in Fig. 2. The foot print diameter of the grid structure is 6 mm
stitute the basic elements of the sensor. The working electrode resulting in a porous electrode foot print area of 0.28 cm2 .
consists of a microporous grid structure etched in silicon. The pores Atomic layer deposition (Beneq TFS 200, Finland) was used to
are arranged in a close packed structure to achieve a high sur- deposit a 10 nm thick electrically insulating and adhesion pro-
face area. These pores are coated with a platinum (Pt) electrode moting layer of Al2 O3 and a 10 nm thick layer of platinum (Pt)
layer and a layer of NafionTM , which acts as a solid polymer elec- for the electrode. The ALD coating technique results in a confor-
trolyte with a nanoporous structure. The utilization of the walls of mal electrode layer over the entire surface of the grid structure,
the pores for the working electrode facilitates the miniaturization including the vertical walls of the micropores, hence achieving an
of the gas sensor. The Platinum–NafionTM combination has been electrode with high surface area. The wafer was then diced into
used as working electrode before, however its non-integrated large 1 cm × 1 cm sized chips. These chips are then individually dipped
size is not suitable for the hand-held application in mind [18–20]. in a 5% NafionTM (SE-5112, Dupont, USA) solution and desiccated
The interaction between the gas, electrode, and electrolyte under in a low pressure chamber for approximately 5 min. The NafionTM
electrical bias leads to the oxidation of NO at the surface of the coated chips were dried for 2 h at room temperature. SEM mea-
working electrode causing a current flow between the working and surements on five chips at five different locations showed that the
the counter electrode. The output current is then measured using a NafionTM layer showed a conformal NafionTM coating with a thick-
potentiostat maintaining a constant voltage of +0.7 V compared to ness of approximately 500 nm. A close up view of the cross-section
the reference electrode. The resulting current through the sensor is of the NafionTM coated grid is shown in Fig. 3. A schematic illustra-
directly proportional to the NO gas concentration. tion of the cross-section of the microporous silicon and the multiple
coatings of Al2 O3 , Pt and NafionTM that formed the working elec-
trode of the sensor is provided in Fig. 4.
3. Experimental
Fig. 6. Schematic illustrating the custom built measurement set-up used for characterizing the NO sensing module.
642 H.K. Gatty et al. / Sensors and Actuators B 209 (2015) 639–644
the same way as for the NO gas, these gases were diluted with N2 14
to get desired gas concentrations. C1
4. Results and discussion Fig. 8. Sensitivity plot of the NO sensor with and without an activated carbon fiber
filter. Sensors C1 to C4 were tested without filter and sensor C5 was tested both with
The sensor was tested for its NO concentration sensitivity, stabil- and without filter. The sensitivity for each sensor was calculated by fitting a straight
line to the output current from each sensor. The y-axis intercept of the straight lines
ity, selectivity, humidity and flow sensitivities, and response time.
is adjusted to pass through the origin to better illustrate the distribution of the NO
Five sensor dies (C1–C5) were used for characterization. One of the sensitivity for all sensors. The sensitivity of the sensor C5 with filter is illustrated by
sensors (C5) was also characterized with the ACF filter. The work- the (-·-) straight line.
ing electrode was continuously biased with +0.7 V compared to the
reference electrode. The output current is defined as the working from 0 to 200 ppb of NO. Based on these data, a sensitivity of approx-
electrode current minus the background (i.e. zero concentration) imately 0.045 nA/ppb was calculated by averaging the sensitivities
current. To overcome the background current drift, the background for all the sensors. This sensitivity is similar to the sensitivity of the
current is measured at zero NO concentration immediately before NO sensor in [18].
the NO is introduced in the gas flow. This measurement procedure For sensor die C5, the NO sensitivity was also measured after
is compatible with the asthma monitoring application in mind. mounting the filter above the sensor resulting in a sensitivity of
approximately 0.05 nA/ppb. This value lies within the range of
4.1. Stability and NO sensitivity sensitivities measured for the individual sensors without filter as
shown in Fig. 8.
Sensor dies (C1–C4) were used for the output current, (INO )
stability measurements. The output current from the sensors 4.2. Selectivity to CO and NH3
remained stable after 24 h as shown in Fig. 7. The initial decrease
observed in the output current is in accordance with previously Fig. 9 shows the measured output current as a function of CO
reported results of a similar working electrode configuration [22]. concentration with and without the ACF filter. Without filter, the
A higher output current was observed for previously reported tests CO sensitivity was measured to be 6.4 nA/ppm, which is too high for
of the sensor [15]. However, for repeated sensor measurements use in asthma diagnostics. However, with the ACF filter the CO sen-
during a period of 125 h, the output currents from four different sitivity was reduced to 0.98 nA/ppm. The ratio of the sensitivity of
sensors showed a stable value of about 7–9 nA for 200 ppb NO gas. nitric oxide to carbon monoxide was found to be approximately
Fig. 8 shows the mean value of the output current for each sensor 50. To be adequate for asthma monitoring, the ratio should be
during five identical consecutive sweeps in concentration ranging improved to approximately 1000 [17]. However, the measurement
of CO sensitivity with the filter shows substantial improvement.
Fig. 9. Output current of the sensor with and without the activated carbon fiber
Fig. 7. Graph shows the output current for 200 ppb NO gas as a function of time for filter tested for sensor C5. A reduction in CO sensitivity was observed after adding
four sensors (C1–C4). The output current was found to be stable after approximately the filter in the set-up. The sensitivity was calculated by fitting a straight line to the
24 h. output current.
H.K. Gatty et al. / Sensors and Actuators B 209 (2015) 639–644 643
10 0.30 RH 37 %
Relative change
6 0.18
4 0.12
2 0.06
0 0.00
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 400 500 600 700 800
Relative humidity (% RH) Flow (ml/min)
(a) (b)
Fig. 10. Measurement showing the relative humidity sensitivity (a) and gas flow sensitivity (b) of the sensor C5. The measurements indicate that the output current for
200 ppb NO gas is independent of the relative change in the humidity between 25 and 65%RH and that it is insensitive to N2 gas flow at two different humidities.
Table 1
N2 Flow NO Flow Output current
Sensitivities of NO, CO and NH3 gases with and without activated carbon fiber (ACF) 16
filter.
14
356
4.4. Response time
354 200 ppb
W:E Current, I (nA)
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Biographies
Acknowledgements
Hithesh K. Gatty received his master of technology degree from NITK, Surathkal,
This work was supported by the Swedish agency VINNOVA, the India in 2004. Currently he is working to his Ph.D in Micro and Nanosystems at KTH
European Research Council (ERC) through the Advanced Grant No: Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. His research is focused on MEMS based gas
267528 and Aerocrine AB, producer of handheld diagnostic tools sensors for medical applications.
for breath monitoring. Simon Leijonmarck completed his Ph.D. at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in
Stockholm, Sweden, within the field of Chemical Engineering in 2013. The Ph.D.
work covered a broad range of electrochemical devices, with emphasis on lithium
References ion batteries. He is currently employed at Swerea SICOMP AB, a Swedish research
institute. The main focus of his work is on carbon fiber based batteries aimed at
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524–526. Mikael Antelius received the M.Sc. degree in chemical engineering from Uppsala
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[3] F.L.M. Ricciardolo, P.J. Sterk, B. Gaston, G. Folkerts, Nitric oxide in health and with the department of Micro- and Nanosystems at the School of Electrical Engi-
disease of the respiratory system, Physiol. Rev. 84 (2004) 731–765. neering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, where he defended
[4] A. Malinovschi, Nitric Oxide Exchange in Central and Pheripheral Airways, Upp- his Ph.D. thesis in April 2013. His research interests include silicon photonics and
sala Universitet, 2008. wafer-level vacuum and liquid packaging, particularly with regards to gas sensors.
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Göran Stemme received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D.
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degree in solid-state electronics from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothen-
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burg, Sweden, in 1982 and 1987, respectively. In 1981 he joined the Department
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of Solid State Electronics, Chalmers University of Technology, where he became
[7] R.A. Dweik, P.B. Boggs, S.C. Erzurum, C.G. Irvin, M.W. Leigh, J.O. Lundberg, et al.,
an Associate Professor (docent) heading the silicon sensor research group in 1990.
An official ATS clinical practice guideline: interpretation of exhaled nitric oxide
Since 1991, he has been a professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm,
levels (FENO) for clinical applications, Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med. 184 (2012).
Sweden, where he heads department of Micro- and Nanosystems in the School of
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papers and has more than 22 patent proposals or granted patents. Dr. Stemme is a
the online and offline measurement of exhaled lower respiratory nitric oxide
member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (KVA).
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exhaled nitric oxide-analysis in research and clinical applications, J. Clin. Monit. in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in microsystem technology from
Comput. 18 (2004) 379–387. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in 2003 and 2007, respectively. He
[11] G. Eranna, B. Joshi, D. Runthala, R. Gupta, Oxide materials for development of is currently an Associate Professor and a team leader of medical MEMS with the
integrated gas sensors—a comprehensive review, Crit. Rev. Solid State Mater. department of Micro- and Nanosystems, School of Electrical Engineering, KTH Royal
Sci. 29 (2004) 111–188. Institute of Technology. His main research fields are sensors for medical diagnos-
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Anal. Chim. Acta 385 (1999) 151–162. using DRIE for RF-MEMS switches and 3-D integration of MEMS on ICs for infrared
[13] F. Maseeh, M.J. Tierney, W.S. Chu, J. Joseph, H.-O. Kim, T. Otagawa, A novel imagers. He has authored or coauthored more than 50 scientific papers.
silicon micro amperometric gas sensor, in: Transducers 91, Int Conf Solid-State
Sens Actuators, IEEE, 1991, pp. 359–362.