基于反应磁控溅射 SnO₂ 薄膜的氢气传感器制备工艺与性能测试

Distribution transformers are characterized by low production costs, large quantities, and scattered installations. Currently, there is a lack of operating status monitoring facilities. Once a power outage occurs, the quality of power consumption at the user side will be directly impaired. Previous studies have shown that the concentration of hydrogen released by internal faults in transformers can effectively reflect the operating status of the equipment, but there is still a lack of low-cost, high-precision, wide-range hydrogen sensors. We adopted reactive magnetron sputtering to prepare SnO2 thin films, and proposed a mass production method for high-performance hydrogen sensors. The research finds that, under the test conditions of an oxygen-to-argon flow rate ratio of 0.7, a substrate temperature of 100 ℃, and a reaction vacuum of 1 Pa, the SnO2 film has good density and optimal hydrogen sensitivity. Within the volume fraction range of 2×10^–3, the hydrogen sensor has good linearity and the nonlinear error is only 2.69%. Compared with commercial hydrogen sensors, SnO2 thin film sensors have higher sensitivity (3.55%/10^–6) and ultra-low detection limit (12×10^–9). Under the interference of other dissolved gases (CO2, CO, CH4, C2H2, C2H4, C2H6) in transformer oil, the response value of SnO2 thin film sensor to hydrogen is 7 times that of the interfering gas. In addition, magnetron sputtering is compatible with the MEMS process, which makes it easy to realize large-scale, low-cost production of hydrogen sensors, and it is expected to be widely used in the field of distribution transformer condition monitoring.