A simple route to fabricate high sensibility gas sensors based on erbium doped ZnO nanocrystals

ZnO based nanostructures including ZnO and erbium (Er) doped ZnO nanocrystals (NCs) were synthesized by a one-step solvothermal method. Compared with the pure ZnO NCs, photoluminescence (PL) of the Er-doped ZnO NCs made an improvement in the visible emissions, which was attributed to the defects or vacancies resulted from Er-dopants. The enhanced defects or vacancies resulted in high activity surfaces, which benefit sensing properties. Furthermore, sensing experiments confirmed that the sensing performance of Er-doped ZnO NCs was improved almost doubled than the pure ZnO NCs. Therefore, the high sensibility gas sensors based on Er-doped ZnO NCs were successfully fabricated.