LAUSR

Herein, nanocrystalline tin oxide - vanadium oxide (SnO2 - V2O5) nanocomposite was prepared by hydrothermal route. The morphology and conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) studies were employed to explore the interface properties between the grain and grain boundaries of these binary oxides. From the detailed analysis of this nanocomposite, it is revealed that the barrier height of 0.512eV favours pronounced sensitivity of 63.99% towards 160 ppm of ethanol at room temperature. This might also be due to the decrease in the resistance from 2000 M Ω (individual SnO2) to 830 M Ω (nanocomposite). The synergistic effect, large surface area, more number of interfaces and more conduction electrons provides more number of surface active sites for the nanocomposite. This favours the nanocomposite to show better sensing performance when compared to the corresponding individual systems.