Electrical characterization of ZnO single nanowire device for chemical sensor application

Vertically well-aligned high quality ZnO nanowires were grown on GaN epilayer on c-plane sapphire via a vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) process by introducing an Au thin film (3 nm) as a catalyst. ZnO single nanowire device was ingenuously fabricated by combining conventional optical lithography and high resolution electron beam lithography and its current-voltage characteristics were measured with doing the post process to acquire reproducible performance as a chemical gas sensor. And its temperature dependent current-voltage characteristics were measured to investigate temperature dependant electrical transport. The ZnO nanowire device showed slightly non-ohmic current-voltage characteristics which may be due to back-to-back configuration of the diodes with the insulating contact barriers and showed an relatively small activation energy of 0.2 eV. To test our device as a chemical sensor, the NO ₂ gas response was reported at the elevated temperature.