A microstructured silicon substrate for low power multi gas sensor applications

Multi gas sensor systems are often the only way for increasing selectivity of a gas measurement in a given environment. It is known that the cycled heating of sensor membranes give the possibility for quantitative analysis of gas mixtures. In addition the integration of several thermally decoupled sensor elements with different gas sensitivities on one silicon chip is possible. On the other hand for hand held devices low power consumption is necessary. In this paper we present results on a microstructured silicon substrate with different gas sensors, each placed on a thermally insulated silicon membrane, optimised for cycled heating.