Macro Porous Structure Silicon Capacitive Sensor for Aqueous Methyl Alcohol

A very low-cost capacitive sensor device based on macroporous structure silicon has been used to detect and quantify the presence of an aqueous methyl alcohol solution.The porous structure silicon was fabricated by laser etching process using a commercial pulse fiber laser.The device has a large number of pores to sense different concentrations of the aqueous methyl alcohol solution.Experimental results prove the possible application of the porous structured silicon sensor to detect methyl alcohol in aqueous solutions up to 3.99 ppm based on the changes in the average dielectric constant within the area of the pores.topics: laser etching (LE), limit of detection (LOD), pulse fiber laser (PFL), porous structured silicon (PSS)