A micro-thermoelectric gas sensor for detection of hydrogen and atomic oxygen

This paper demonstrates the fabrication and performance of a micro-thermoelectric gas sensor for an effective and inexpensive gas analysis system. The proposed micro-thermoelectric gas sensor was fabricated by using a surface micromachining technique. The sensing mechanism, consisting of thermoelectric material and a novel metal catalyst, was fabricated on the highly thermally resistive layer for reduced heat transfer to the substrate allowing for a simple fabrication process. The micro-thermoelectric gas sensor detects target gas species by measuring the reaction heat of the catalytic reaction between the target gas and a novel metal catalyst using Cu–Bi thermopiles. The catalytic reaction occurs only on the hot junction of the sensing thermopile where the metal catalyst is deposited. In order to reduce the external thermal noise, a difference between the output voltage of the sensing and the reference thermopiles was measured by using a differential amplifier. The response of the fabricated sensor was linear to temperature difference. The fabricated sensor can be used to detect various concentrations of hydrogen and atomic oxygen, where the output voltage linearly increased with the gas concentration.