Metal oxide nanocrystals for gas sensing

In the past few years, progress has been achieved in the synthesis, structural characterization and physical properties investigation of nanostructures. Due to their peculiar characteristics and size effects, these materials often show some novel physical properties that are different from those of the bulk, and are of great interest both for fundamental study and for potential nanodevice applications. In this paper, the topics covered are the worldwide most recent research in the field of quasi one-dimensional inorganic structures for gas sensing and some promising results achieved at Sensor Lab in Brescia Italy in sensors based on conductometric, visible photoluminescence quenching and photoinduced desorption by subbandgap light.