Robust gas detection at sub ppm concentrations

Gas sensors often suffer from signal drift and long response and recovery times, giving rise to problems to evaluate the steady state gas response. It is shown that these problems can be reduced by modulating the test gas concentration and utilizing the change in the slope of the sensor signal as the sensor response feature. The case of low hydrogen concentration detection is studied using a light pulse technique and a PdPt-MIS field-effect device. For the difference in slope method it was possible to reduce the measurement time from hours in the steady state measurements to 1 + 1 min (test gas + reference gas exposure time) and still achieve a detection limit of about 40 ppb for a step change in hydrogen concentration. Such measurements could be made in spite of a drifting baseline caused, e.g. by previous hydrogen exposures. A theoretical model of how a step change in the hydrogen partial pressure affects the difference in slope is given. The model also predicts a non-reactive hydrogen sticking probability (i.e. the probability that an incoming hydrogen molecule from the gas phase will contribute to the response) of about 1 × 10−8 at 100 ppb H2, which is about 2 orders of magnitude lower than the reactive sticking coefficient.