Development of miniaturized gas ionization sensor for harsh environments by using polyimide spacer

Gas sensing can be performed by fingerprinting their field ionization characteristics. This paper presents the development of a miniaturized ionization sensor using ion-track etched polyimide as structural layer and template for Ni nanowires synthesis. The device consists in two parallel plate electrodes with gaps varying from 5 to 12 μm. The nanowires impact on breakdown voltage has been analyzed during first electrical characterizations and I-V curves measurements. For a 5.5 μm-gap, breakdown voltage is reduced from 320 to 80 V with a corresponding current at least three order of magnitude lower. Using the sensor in harsh environments such as space applications is also discussed. Miniaturized ionization sensors are powerful candidates as integrated universal gas sensor based on pattern recognition for environmental monitoring. Such a system should be easily integrated in picosatellites such as CubeSats dedicated to the physical analysis of low thermosphere composition