Electrical and Chemical Sensing Properties of a Printed Indium-Tin-Oxide Film for the Detection of Hazardous and Noxious Substances

The feasibility of useing a flexible, printed indium-tin-oxide (ITO) sensor to detect hazardous and noxious substances was investigated. The resistivities of this printed ITO (P-ITO) film and that of a commercial sputtered ITO (S-ITO) film were 35.9 and 1.5 × 10 −4 Ω·cm, respectively. The corresponding grain sizes, a determined via X-ray diffractometry, were 31.7 and 102.6 nm. This difference in grain size between the two films led to a remarkable difference in the respective carrier scattering mechanisms. To evaluate the chemical sensing property of both ITO films, we tested their NH3 sensing abilities; the printed film exhibited a higher sensitivity and better electrical properties.