534 Nanosensors: Physical, Chemical, and Biological
characteristics. What are the main ideas of this approach? Non-agglomerated,
necked NPs have the characteristics of a mixture of 0- and 1D structures. If
they are slightly necked with the adjacent NPs without any agglomeration,
all of them participate in the gas-sensing reaction and, thus, the gas sensitiv-
ity is enhanced. In addition, the rapid diffusion of the target gas and speedy
counter diffusion of the product gas are enabled and, thus, the response char-
acteristics are improved. The slight necking of the NPs with their neighbors
also enhances the conductivity of the channels, due to the lowering of the
potential barriers present in the interfaces of the adjacent NPs. Hence, chan-
nels ...