The NANOS4 proposal is driven by the market need of cheap and reliable gas sensing systems, e.g. for: increased safety, comfort and economy of flying in large passenger aircrafts and in vehicles, early detection of smouldering fires, reliable and cost effective monitoring of environmental odour nuisances and workplace safety.
The sensors will be fabricated by nanoengineering techniques like vapour phase transport process crystal growth. Optical, ion and electron beam nanolithography will be a tool for selective removal of materials. The materials will be deposited as sensor arrays over micromachined semiconductor substrates with surfaces suitable for high-temperature growth of metal oxides.

The ambition of the project is to incorporate the arrays into miniaturised low-power-consumption gas sensing systems equipped with tiny micro-chambers operated in an active sampling mode as micro-reactors.

The systems will operate with power-consumption budgets comparable to a single commercial thick-film gas sensing element, featuring at the same time superior gas distinction, drift compensation as well as self-test functionalities.