Abstract
In this paper, we describe the thermal characteristics of the output voltages of ethanol gas sensor according to the amount of radiation incident on the infrared sensors located at each focal point of two elliptical waveguides. In order to verify the output characteristics of the gas sensor according to the amount of incident light on the infrared sensor, two combinations of sensor modules were fabricated. Hydrophobic thin film is deposited on one of the reflectors of sensor modules and one of the two infrared sensors was equipped with a hollow disk (10 Ø), and the temperature characteristics of the infrared sensor equipped with the hollow disk (10 Ø) and the infrared sensor without the disk were tested. The temperature was varied from 253 K to 333 K at 10 K intervals based on 298 K. The properties of ethanol gas sensor have been identified with respect to varying temperature for a range of ethanol concentration from 0 ppm to 500 ppm. In the case of an infrared sensor equipped with a hollow disk (10 Ø), the output voltage of the sensor decreased by 0.8 mV and 1 mV, respectively, as the temperature increased. Conversely, the output voltage of the diskless infrared sensor showed an average increase of 67 mV and 57 mV as the temperature increased. The ethanol concentrations estimated on the basis of results show an error of more than 10 % for less than 100 ppm concentration. However, if the ethanol concentration exceeds 100 ppm, the gas concentration can be estimated within the range of ${\pm}10%$.