Abstract
Multifunctionality, interference-free signal readout, and quantum effect are important considerations for flexible sensors equipped within a single unit towards further miniaturization. To address these criteria, we present the slotted carbon nanotube (CNT) junction features tunable Fano resonance driven by flexoelectricity, which could serve as an ideal multimodal sensory receptor. Based on extensive ab initio calculations, we find that the effective Fano factor can be used as a temperature-insensitive extrinsic variable for sensing the bending strain, and the Seebeck coefficient can be used as a strain-insensitive intrinsic variable for detecting temperature. Thus, this dual-parameter permits simultaneous sensing of temperature and strain without signal interference. We further demonstrate the applicability of this slotted junction to ultrasensitive chemical sensing which enables precise determination of donor-type, acceptor-type, and inert molecules. This is due to the enhancement or counterbalance between flexoelectric and chemical gating. Flexoelectric gating would preserve the electron–hole symmetry of the slotted junction whereas chemical gating would break it. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, the slotted CNT junction provides an excellent quantum platform for the development of multistimuli sensation in artificial intelligence at the molecular scale.
Highlights
Flexible electronic devices offer great potential for applications in health monitoring, robotics, and prosthetics, which are expected to play a crucial role in continuously collecting data from the human body to capture meaningful health status changes in time for preventive intervention
To decouple the signal interference, more emphasis is put on achieving multimodality within a single sensory unit
We mimic the parallel arrangement of slit geometry to design multifunctional sensors based on carbon nanotube (CNT) junctions, where the sensory performance is dominated by quantum interference effect, namely, Fano resonances [9]
Summary
Flexible electronic devices offer great potential for applications in health monitoring, robotics, and prosthetics, which are expected to play a crucial role in continuously collecting data from the human body to capture meaningful health status changes in time for preventive intervention. Miniaturization of integrated circuits has been a long-lasting pursuit for electronic devices in the past few decades In spite of these abovementioned attempts done in terms of multimodal sensory systems at the microscale, it becomes increasingly important to explore the quantum effect in the nanoscale (or molecular scale) when approaching the limit of Moore’s law [8]. We introduce the effective parallel slit architecture into carbon nanotube (CNT) with tunable quantum interference effect for integrating the multifunctional flexible electronics with high performance to satisfy the next-generation intelligent sensor Such architecture can integrate low-dimensional materials to enable functional transformation from the deformation to changes in their physical, mechanical, electric, and chemical properties. Good determinations of single molecule are available by the values and the sign of relative changes in effective Fano factor due to the enhancement or counterbalance between flexoelectric and chemical gating
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