Papers by Author: A. Bellel

Abstract: The detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), humidity and toxic industrial chemicals is important for various environmental and industrial applications. The design of interdigital capacitor (IDCs) sensor is carried out in such a way that it would be suitable for microelectronic technology. The basic geometry of IDCs is defined by some parameters such as: number of electrodes N, electrode width W, electrode length L and the separation between electrodes G. The interactions between IDCs sensitive coating and analyte induced a change in the sensors capacitance due to the permittivity variation of the sensitive layer and to the change in polymer thickness (swelling). In this work, a fairly new approach of IDCs based sensor in terms of capacitance calculation has been presented. The results have been obtained from the modeling of the sensors geometry 2D and 3D using multi-physics simulation software COMSOL. The effects of some geometry parameters coupled with swelling measurements for polymeric films have been studied.

Abstract: Humidity sensitive layers elaborated from pure HMDSO and TEOS by PECVD technique have been studied. Humidity sensing properties including impedance relative humidity (RH) and current RH characteristics were investigated. TEOS films show higher sensitivity and excellent linearity over the explored range of humidity (20–95% RH). However, HMDSO films exhibits a small response and recovery of about 8 and 34 s for humidification and desiccation, respectively, in addition to very low hysteresis (2%). Structural analyses of sensitive layers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).

Abstract: Hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) thin films coated quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) electrodes have been characterized for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The sensitive coatings were plasma polymerized in pure vapor of HMDSO at different flow rates. The QCM based sensors responses were found to be linearly correlated with the concentration of VOCs vapor. It was shown that it is possible to tune the chemical affinity of the sensor by changing the HMDSO flow rate. Contact angle measurements, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to study surface wettability, chemical composition and surface morphology of the coated QCM electrodes.

Abstract: Humidity sensors are widely used in industry production, process control, environment monitoring, medical and electrical applications. In this study, water molecule sensitive layers have been elaborated by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition PECVD technique, from a mixture of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) and oxygen (O2) in different proportions. The films were deposited on a comb-shape aluminum electrode evaporated on glass substrate. Electrical and structural characteristics of the elaborated humidity sensors were evaluated by humidity-impedance characteristics, infrared spectroscopy FTIR and ellipsometric analysis. Electrical analysis showed that the elaborated humidity sensor exhibited a detectable response to relative humidity ranging from 35 to 95%. However, increasing O2 concentration in the mixture during deposition, leads to a significant decrease of the sensor sensibility. A sensor elaborated with pure vapor of HMDSO exhibited a better sensibility. FTIR analysis revealed that increasing O2 concentration induces a decrease of methyl groups CH3 and the formation of Si-O groups leading to film densification. Besides, the values of the refractive index deduced from ellipsometric data indicated that the refractive index increases with increasing the O2% in the mixture. This observation may be considered as further evidence to film densification.