Miniaturized sensor for the detection of environmental pollutants

A miniaturized ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) for the sensitive and selective detection of low concentrated substances in the ppb-range under atmospheric conditions is presented. The chip with a novel design consists of an integrated ion filter and detector and is manufactured with MEMS technologies. The implemented concept of the IMS-Chip allows an easy and flexible adaption to a broad range of target applications. Environmental analysis represents a possible field of application for the IMS- hip. Concerning this, volatile organic compounds are substances of common interest. First promising results are presented which demonstrate the performance of the ion detector. An outlook for further investigations and the evaluation of the integrated ion filter is given.