Dr. LI Mingtao, Prof. Dr. MENG Guowen and associate Prof. YIN Zhijun from Institute of Solid State Physics (ISSP), CAS, and Prof. Dr. HUANG Qing from Institute of Plasma Physics (IPP), CAS, invented a new prototype sensor for rapid detection of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). They reported a facilely structured prototype sensor from porous ZnO sandwiched with two conductive glasses. The change of surface photovoltage (SPV) of porous ZnO between before and after PCB adsorption was detected by a lock-in amplifier. The sensor has been used for detection of low concentration PCB29 and PCB101, and the lower detection limits reach to 10^-6 M. The result was published on Langmuir 2010, 26(16), 13703–13706, and related outcomes were submitted for national invention patent applications. This study was supported by funding from the National Basic Research Program of China, Natural Science Foundation of China and Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China.