UV-assisted fluctuation-enhanced gas sensing by ink-printed MoS2 devices

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In this work, MoS2 flakes were printed on ceramic substrates and investigated toward 1–10 ppm of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), 2–12 ppm of ammonia (NH3), and 2–12 ppm acetone (C3H6O) under UV light (275 nm). The structure of overlapping MoS2 flakes and UV light assistance affected high responsivity to NO2 when DC resistance was monitored, and superior sensitivity to NH3 was obtained from the low-frequency noise spectra. MoS2 exhibited response and recovery times in hundreds of seconds and stability throughout the experiments conducted within a few months. MoS2 sensor exhibited a resistance drift during the detection of a specific relaxation time. Subtracting the baseline burden with exponential drift exposed the direction of changes induced by oxidizing and reducing gases and reduced DL to 80 ppb, 130 ppb, and 360 ppb for NO2, NH3, and C3H6O, respectively. The fluctuation-enhanced sensing (FES) revealed that the adsorption of NO2 on MoS2 decreases the noise intensity, whereas adsorbed NH3 increases the fluctuations of current flowing through the sensor, and these changes are proportional to the concentration of gases. The noise responses for NO2 and NH3 were opposite and higher than DC resistance responses with subtracted baseline (an increase of 50% for 10 ppm of NO2 and an increase of more than 600% for 12 ppm of NH3), showing that FES is a highly sensitive tool to detect and distinguish between these two gases. This way, we introduce a simple and low-cost method of gas sensor fabrication using ink-printed MoS2 and the possibility of enhancing its sensitivity through data processing and the FES method.