Growth of lithium silicate crystals inside porous silicon film and their exploitation for ozone detection

Silicon dioxide was formed by oxidizing porous silicon film and annealed, in a next step, at 920 °C with lithium nitrate embedded in its structure. These operations have produced the two lithium silicates, Li2Si2O5 and Li2SiO3, as it has been confirmed by the X-ray diffraction measurements. At relative high temperature (230 °C), the experimental ionic conductivity of this achieved sample has doubled in presence of ozone flow. A comparison with other samples, prepared with varieties of metallic nitrates and by following the same experimental procedures as for the former one, has proved that the sample prepared with zirconium was also good for ozone detection.