Fe-doped SnO2 nanofibers are synthesized through an electrospinning method and characterized by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The sensor fabricated from these nanofibers exhibits high sensitivity and rapid response/recovery to ethanol at 300 degrees C. The sensitivity is up to 15.3 when the sensor is exposed to 100 ppm ethanol, and the response and recovery time is about I and 3 s, respectively. The linear dependence of the sensitivity on the ethanol concentration is observed in the range of 10-300 ppm. These results demonstrate that Fe-doped SnO2 nanofibers can be used as the sensing material for fabricating high performance ethanol sensors. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.