Fundamental and practical aspects in the design of nanoscaled SnO2 gas sensors: a status report

Gas sensors based on semiconducting materials have become of great interest to both sensor users and researchers. In this context, a huge number of pu blications have appeared in the literature which deal with metal oxide gas sensors, in general, and with the prototype material SnO2, in particular. T he amount of data published grows continuously and has led to a situation i n which even experts in this field tend to lose an overview. The present re view describes the reasons for this complexity and outlines unifying concep ts to understand the huge amount of published, mostly empirical data. This leads to a comprehension of gas-sensing phenomena in both the application a nd research domains.