Rayleigh wave hydrogen sensors based on 128° YX-LiNbO3 substrates with WO3 sensing layers operating at room temperature are studied.The experimental results indicate that the WO3 layers obtained by a sol-gel method have much higher sensitivities because the sensing layers produced by the sol-gel method have small grains and high roughness and porosity.It is also confirmed that in the sol-gel method,keeping WO3 solutions at low temperature and/or decreasing the viscosity of the solutions can decrease the grain sizes and increase the hydrogen-absorbability of the sensing layer.Under the optimized preparation conditions,the high sensitivity of the hydrogen sensors at room temperature is obtained,in which 1％ hydrogen in natural air induces the frequency shift of 72 kHz at the operating frequency of 124.2 MHz.Surface acoustic wave (SAW) hydrogen sensors have attracted a great deal of attention so far,in which the sensors have achieved high sensitivity as the sensors were often operated at high temperature,such as higher than 100℃.[1-4] However,in these experiments,a heater and a thermostat were required,which induced the sensors to be more complicated and unfavorable for miniaturization,and limited their application at room temperature.Furthermore,the heater can induce extra power loss and risks of fire and explosion.