Prof. John Bell, Head of School of Chemistry, Physics, and Mechanical Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Prof. Yuantong Gu, Dr Suvash C. Saha, Dr Haifei Zhan and Mr Tong Li were invited to visit Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech & Nano-bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINANO) on July 10, 2013.
Prof. Bell firstly gave a brief introduction of QUT, particularly introduced the research strengths and environment within the School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering and then delivered a lecture about Engineering Thin Film Semiconductor Gas Sensors. As well known, thin film semiconductor gas sensors typically operate at temperature above 400 oC, but low temperature operation is highly desirable, especially for remote field sensing as this significantly reduces power consumption. Prof. Bell’s group has investigated a range of sensor materials based on both pure and doped tungsten oxides, mainly focusing on Fe-doping, deposited using both thermal evaporation and electron-beam evaporation, and using a variety of post-deposition annealing. The film shows good sensitivity at operating temperature as low as 150 oC for detection of NO2.
Professors and Researchers from QUT also visited the Electrochemical Interface Lab and Nano-Fabrication Platform in SINANO, and they were very impressed by the facilities there. They showed great interest in building collaboration with some teams in SINANO.
