Electrochemical sensor and method for the production thereof

摘要

An electrochemical sensor allows even extremely small quantities or concentrations of a target chemical substance to be detected or quantified with a high precision in a particularly reliable manner. The novel sensor has a detector zone formed by nanoparticles which are embedded in a matrix and have a higher electric conductivity than the matrix material. The electric conductivity of the zone is determined by electron tunneling, ionization or hopping processes among the nanoparticles and by the electrochemical interaction thereof with a target substance to be detected.

主权项

1. A method of producing an electrochemical sensor with a detector zone, the method which comprises:
providing a substrate and feeding a number of precursor substances in gaseous form to a deposition zone in a vicinity of a substrate; energetically exciting the precursor substances for converting the precursor substances to form conversion products and causing the energetically excited conversion products to deposit in solid and nonvolatile form on the substrate, to thereby form the detector zone with an electrical conductivity determined by electron tunneling, ionization, or hopping processes and configured for detecting an electrochemical interaction thereof with a target substance to be detected by the electrochemical sensor; and setting a plurality of process parameters so that the detector zone has a predetermined electrical conductivity dependent on a temperature T that is approximately governed by the relationship ln σ˜T−γ, where σ is the electrical conductivity and γ is a characteristic exponent having a value of approximately 0.5 or approximately 1.0.