Gas sensing device having distributed gas sensing elements and a method for sensing gas

A gas sensing device, comprising gas sensing elements that comprise gas reactive elements, each gas reactive element has a gas dependent temperature parameter;

• and semiconductor temperature sensing elements, each semiconductor sensing element is configured to sense radiation emitted from one of the gas reactive elements and generate detection signals that are responsive to a temperature of the one of the gas reactive elements;
• wherein the gas reactive elements and the semiconductor temperature sensing elements are of microscopic scale;
• wherein the gas reactive elements and the semiconductor temperature sensing elements are spaced apart from each other;
• wherein a gas sensing element of the gas sensing elements comprises a gas reactive element and a semiconductor sensing element that is thermally coupled to the gas reactive element;
• wherein at least two gas sensing elements are configured to sense different gases;
• and
• wherein at least one of the following is true:
• (a) the gas sensing elements comprise a first plurality (N) of gas sensing elements that are configured, at a certain point in time, to differ from each other by their response to gases;
• wherein the gas sensing device is configured to detect a composition of up till N different gaseous materials by processing the detection signals from semiconductor temperature sensing elements thermally coupled to the N gas sensing elements;
• (b) at least one gas reactive element of the gas reactive elements is thermally coupled to a heating element of the gas sensing device, the heating element is configured to heat the at least one gas reactive element to multiple predefined temperatures that are associated with a sensing of multiple gases that differ from each other;
• wherein the heating element is configured to heat the at least one gas reactive element, at different points in time, to different predefined temperatures of the multiple predefined temperatures;
• (c) the at least one gas reactive element is thermally coupled to the heating element, the heating device is configured to heat, in a non-continuous manner, the at least one gas reactive element to at least one predefined temperature.