Structural and optical properties of Mn2O3 nanoparticles & its gas sensing applications

Mn2O3 nanoparticles have been synthesized using chemical co-precipitation method. The as synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), UV-Visible spectrophotometer (UV-Vis) and Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectrophotometer method. The results indicate that synthesized Mn2O3 nanoparticles possessed crystallites having sizes 12.56 nm and 11.90 nm with cubic and orthorhombic structures respectively. The two samples are named as M1 and M2. The gas response of both the samples was investigated for different concentrations of NH3 gas at room temperature. Sample M2 based thick film sensor showed enhanced sensing performance in comparison to sample M1. This is attributed to smaller crystallite size of sample M2. The sample M2 based sensor showed the response of 67.1% with the response and recovery times 65 and 71 sec respectively. The fabricated nanoparticles show promising use as room temperature NH3 sensors.