Structural characteristics and application of Mn oblique nano-rod thin films as electrodes in gas ionization and field emission sensor

In this work, the performance of a face-to-face gas sensor based on Mn nano-rod thin films with different heights as both electrodes is reported. Paschen’s law and departure from Paschen’s law are studied. The electrodes were fabricated on Ti/Si(400) substrates. The dynamic performance of the sensor was studied at 0.1–1000 mbar gas pressures for gap sizes between 3 and 200 µm for N 2 , air and CO gases. It was observed that the Paschen’s law is satisfied when the gap size is greater than 10 µm, but at less than this gap size deviation from the Paschen’s law occurs. Results showed that the aspect ratio of the nano-rod directly influences the breakdown voltage. A pronounced resolution for selectivity of the sensor under different conditions of the measurements was obtained, which improved with gas pressure. Comparison of the results with the published works showed higher sensitivity (except those of Chahshouri et al. (Chahshouri et al. in JMM. 30:075001, 2020) for 20 and 100 μm gaps distances) for the three gases studied.