Dr Eng. Piotr Kałużyński from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering a finalist of the prestigious competition

Dr Eng. Piotr Kałużyński from the Department of Optoelectronics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Silesian University of Technology – is a finalist of the prestigious nationwide competition TRUMPF-Hüettinger for the best diploma theses in 2024! A total of 129 projects were submitted to the competition, applications were submitted from 23 technical universities.

Our finalist presented a paper entitled:” Research of sensor nanostructures using hybrid co-polymer-based semiconductor receptors for detecting sub-ppm no₂ at room temperature.” In his thesis, Dr. Piotr Kałużyński has developed advanced hybrid p-conductor gas receptors, combining nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) with organic block copolymers based on P3HT. In the tests of these receptors, in the configuration of the chemo resistors, the ability to detect NO₂ at sub-ppm concentrations – up to 50 ppt, with long-term stability maintained at about 5 ppb was demonstrated.

The solutions developed by Dr Eng. Piotr Kałużyński  indicate a significant progress in the design of microelectronic NO2 sensors, which has the potential to be used in air quality monitoring systems, where fast and precise detection of even trace concentrations of toxic gases is crucial for the protection of public health and the environment. This is a big step toward the development of gas detection, because the presented work not only raises standards in the field of pollution detection but also sets the directions for further research on hybrid receptor structures based on semiconductor materials.

The competition is organized by TRUMPF Huettinger, the world leader in plasma power supply and system technology for the conductor industries, and the prize pool was 90 000 PLN.

For more information, please visit: Ogólnopolski konkurs na najlepsze prace dyplomowe | TRUMPF and https://www.polsl.pl/re4/aktualnosci-40/.

Pictures: TRUMPF Huettinger.