Air Stable Nickel-Decorated Black Phosphorus and Its Room-Temperature Chemiresistive Gas Sensor Capabilities.

Matteo Valt,Maria Caporali,Martina Banchelli,Cesare Malagù,Soufiane Krik,Andrea Gaiardo,Maurizio Peruzzini,Manuel Serrano-Ruiz,Vincenzo Guidi,Barbara Fabbri,Erica Iacob,Lia Vanzetti,Matteo Vanni,Cristiano D’Andrea

doi:10.1021/acsami.1c10763

Abstract

In the rapidly emerging field of layered two-dimensional functional materials, black phosphorus, the P-counterpart of graphene, is a potential candidate for various applications, e.g., nanoscale optoelectronics, rechargeable ion batteries, electrocatalysts, thermoelectrics, solar cells, and sensors. Black phosphorus has shown superior chemical sensing performance; in particular, it is selective for the detection of NO2, an environmental toxic gas, for which black phosphorus has highlighted high sensitivity at a ppb level. In this work, by applying a multiscale characterization approach, we demonstrated a stability and functionality improvement of nickel-decorated black phosphorus films for gas sensing prepared by a simple, reproducible, and affordable deposition technique. Furthermore, we studied the electrical behavior of these films once implemented as functional layers in gas sensors by exposing them to different gaseous compounds and under different relative humidity conditions. Finally, the influence on sensing performance of nickel nanoparticle dimensions and concentration correlated to the decoration technique and film thickness was investigated.

Highlights

The increasing demand of new materials in the field of gas sensing has constantly pushed forward the research in materials science and technology in recent years
Exfoliated black phosphorus is interesting for use in electronic sensing devices, for its unique direct and tunable band gap ranging from 0.3 eV to 2.0 eV and its high carrier mobility[6] and for its high chemical adsorption energy, less out-of-carrier conductance, and large availability of adsorption sites caused by its corrugated surface structure.[7]
We studied the electrical behavior of these films aiming to their application as functional layers for gas sensing by exposing them to different gaseous compounds (NO2, CO2, H2, NH3, CO, benzene, ethanol, ethylene, formaldehyde, H2S, and SO2) and to different relative humidity (RH%) conditions

Summary

Introduction

The increasing demand of new materials in the field of gas sensing has constantly pushed forward the research in materials science and technology in recent years.

Results

Conclusion