Study of a semiconductor type pH sensor to measure low water content soils in real-time

Real time measurement of soil pH is demanded in precision agriculture. Therefore, pH measurement capability in low water content soil was needed to confirm. In this paper, we fabricated an ISFET type pH sensor which can be inserted into soil. The sensor performed to measure two type of experiments. First, we experimented with changes in sensor output due to soil water content. The sensor output voltages were changed by changes in the soil pH value. In contrast, the voltages didn't be changed by changes in the soil water content. Secondly, we experimented whether the output of the sensor shows the same change when the soil pH changes during the measurement. The sensor could detect the pH value of soil which was changed dramatically by passing water. We confirmed that the ISFET type pH sensor can directly measure soil pH in real time.