A non-trivial approach for estimation of error in resistive humidity sensors and its correlation with sensitivity

Abstract

The correspondence between sensitivity and adsorption/desorption-induced hysteresis in ZnSnO3 resistive sensors is investigated. The ZnSnO3 humidity sensor made at 100 °C present lower degree of error (1.21 ± 0.12%RH) associated with sensitivity of 0.11 ± 0.01 kΩ(%RH)−1, whereas the 500 °C annealed analogous showed an increased degree of measurement error value (1.48 ± 0.23% RH) along with sensitivity of 0.14 ± 0.02 kΩ(%RH)−1 within the humidity range of 8–97% RH. A proportionate increase in sensitivity and measurement error is evident with increase in annealing temperature. The variance of principal components (PC1 and PC2) contributes 89.92% and 4.64% in the score plot confirms the migration of measurement errors from high to low RH level subject to annealing of sensing material according to principal component analysis (PCA). The trade-off relation between sensitivity and measurement error is observed for sensors with enactment of annealing emphasizes the prominence of revising the adsorption/desorption hysteresis as an crucial feature in development of metal oxide-based chemiresistive sensors. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2025.