Self-Heating in Individual Nanowires:a Major Breakthrough in Sensors Technology

摘要

The major advantages of using self-heated individual nanowires as chemical gas sensors are presented and discussed. This novel strategy is based on the exploitation of dissipated power at the nanowire by Joule effect due to the bias current applied in conductometric measurements, which enables heating the tinny mass of these wires up to the optimum temperatures for gas sensing applications. Due to the nanoscale integration of the heater in the sensing material itself, the power required to operate these sensors is significantly reduced, if they are compared to the state-of-the-art technologies such as thin-film sensors with external microheaters. Furthermore, this strategy enables a reduction of the response time, improving the dynamic behavior of sensors obtained with current technologies. In summary, this approach represents a major breakthrough in sensor technology and it paves the way towards a new generation of fully integrated and autonomous electronic nano-noses.