Characteristics of Highly Sensitive Hydrogen Sensor Based on Pt-WO3/Si Microring Resonator

Abstract

Hydrogen gas has attracted attention as a new energy carrier, and simple but highly sensitive hydrogen sensors are required. We fabricated an optical hydrogen sensor based on a silicon microring resonator (MRR) with tungsten oxide (WO3) using a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible process for the MRR and a sol-gel method for the WO3 layer and investigated its sensing characteristics at device temperatures of 5, 20, and 30 °C. At each temperature, a hydrogen concentration of as low as 0.1 vol% was successfully detected. The gas sensitivity increased with decreasing temperature. The dependence of the sensitivity on the device temperature can be attributed to the thickness of tungsten bronze (HxWO3) formed by WO3 during exposure to hydrogen gas. In addition, a hydrogen gas sensor based on a silicon-MRR-enhanced Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MRR-MZI) is proposed and its significantly high sensing ability using improved changes in the transmittance of light is theoretically discussed.