1. Introduction
Carbon monoxide (CO) sensors are essential to the control of emissions from combustion processes. More precise control of the air/fuel ratio in a combustion processes can yield significant gains in efficiency and results in substantial savings in fuel consumption. In addition, the toxic nature of COnecessitates the detection of this gas for household and environmental applications. Metal oxide semiconductors have been employed in the detection of CO. One of the advantages of these materials is that they enable high temperature operation, making them unique for hostile industrial applications. Moreover, many gas reactions are plausible only at such elevated temperatures. The basic property of metal oxides that is of interest in gas-sensing applications is the dependence of their electrical conductivity on the ambient gas. Most metal oxide semiconductors are naturally of n-type conductivity due to the presence of a large number of oxygen vacancies. When such a material is exposed to the atmosphere, oxygen molecules are chemisorbed to the grain boundaries and pick up electrons from the conduction band and create a space charge layer between the grains [1]. This leads to the formation of Schottky barriers at the surfaces of the grains, and increases the resistivity of the material [2]. Exposure of the material to reducing gases (such as carbon monoxide) causes a reaction of these gases with the chemisorbed oxygen, increasing the electronic conduction and reducing the resistance [1,2]. The sensing properties are based on surface reactions and are greatly affected by the microstructure of the material [3]. Metal oxide semiconductor sensors have been used both as bulk and thin films. Thin films offer the added advantage of higher surface-to-volume ratio. In addition to the choice of the semiconducting oxide, other film parameters that are widely known to affect the sensing properties of a thin film are surface roughness, stoichiometry, and porosity. Furthermore, depending on the preparation technique of the sensing layers, large differences of behavior concerning gas response and selectivity were observed.