Assimilation of Interdigitated Electrodes (IDEs) with ZnO Nanorods (NRs) for Potassium Measurement Application

There is a significant interest to detect the level of nutrients concentrations available in the agriculture land. Among nutrients, the potassium ions play an imperative role in the plant growth and photosynthesis process. This paper presents the fabrication of IDEs based potassium sensors by using ZnO nanorods (NRs) active layers. The deposition of ZnO thin film layer followed by a hydrothermal treatment lead to the ZnO NRs on the thermally evaporated IDEs. The IDEs patterns with the dimension of 0.5 mm wide, 15 mm long and 0.5 mm distance between the adjacent fingers, designed and tested using AutoCAD software tool. The structural, compositional and electrical properties of the NRs were investigated and studied by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FeSEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and Keithley 4200 semiconductor characterization system respectively. The fabricated potassium sensor shows a noble current response with respect to the increasing potassium concentrations. The fabricated sensor detected potassium in the range of 5μM to 20μM potassium concentrations with a good correlation coefficient (R 2 ) of 0.9389. The sensor displayed a sensitivity of 0.459 μA/μM in the range of 5μM to 20μΜ potassium concentrations