Vitamin C-assisted synthesis and gas sensing properties of coaxial In2O3 nanorod bundles

In2O3 nanorod bundles with well-designed morphology, hierarchical nanostructure and large specific surface area were quickly prepared via microwave hydrothermal method in the presence of vitamin C. The observations of field emission electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy revealed that the as-prepared In2O3 samples were constructed from lots of well-aligned nanorods with average diameter of about 50 nm. To demonstrate their potential application in detecting harmful gases, these bundle-like In2O3 samples were applied to fabricate gas sensor and their sensing properties were examined. It was found that the sensors based on such novel In2O3 nanorod bundles exhibited high response and excellent selectivity during detecting NO2 gas at the operating temperature of 100 °C.