Semiconductor sensors

Details Semiconductor sensors Semiconductor sensors

1975-11-07

1977-03-15

Ruehl, Charles A.

Measuring and testing

Gas analysis

Gas chromatography

G01N 2300

Patent

active

040117456

ABSTRACT:
A semiconductor sensor adapted to detect with a high degree of sensitivity small magnitudes of a mechanical force, presence of traces of a gas or light. The sensor includes a high energy gap (i.e., .about. 1.0 electron volts) semiconductor wafer. Mechanical force is measured by employing a non-centrosymmetric material for the semiconductor. Distortion of the semiconductor by the force creates a contact potential difference (cpd) at the semiconductor surface, and this cpd is determined to give a measure of the force. When such a semiconductor is subjected to illumination with an energy less than the energy gap of the semiconductors, such illumination also creates a cpd at the surface. Detection of this cpd is employed to sense the illumination itself or, in a variation of the system, to detect a gas. When either a gas or light is to be detected and a crystal of a non-centrosymmetric material is employed, the presence of gas or light, in appropriate circumstances, results in a strain within the crystal which distorts the same and the distortion provides a mechanism for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the gas or the light, as the case may be.

REFERENCES:
patent: 2965842 (1960-12-01), Jacobson
patent: 3194053 (1965-07-01), Shang
Lagowski et al., "Electronic Characteristics of Real CdS Surfaces", Surface Science 29 (1972), pp. 213-229.

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