ams has a unique track record based on more than 12 years of experience in supplying metal-oxide (MOX) gas sensors for automotive and home and building automation applications.
MOX gas sensing technology from ams offers very high tolerance of siloxanes and gives users the most robust platform for the development of reliable air-quality monitoring and gas detection products.
CMOS micro-hotplates are the key to the superior features of the ams MOX gas sensors, enabling sensor miniaturization, lower power consumption and fast response times. These micro-hotplates are suspended in a robust membrane and act as heater elements for a metal oxide-based sensing material.
The micro-hotplates contain electrodes that measure the resistance of the sensing material. The material’s resistance changes when it reacts to selected gases at temperatures between 150°C and 450°C.
For reducing gases such as carbon monoxide (CO), a reaction with the sensing material decreases the resistance of the sensor. For oxidizing gases such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) the resistance increases. The magnitude of the resistive changes depends on the metal-oxide composition/structure and the operating temperature of the sensor.
Today ams has production solutions for reducing and oxidizing gas sensors, including off-the-shelf digital solutions for monitoring indoor air quality with advanced software algorithms for relative humidity and temperature compensation.
