Ranging from monitoring indoor air quality to controlling processes in the food, pharmaceutical, and electronics industries, humidity-sensitive sensors play a pivotal role in various industrial and environmental applications. The crystallographic orientation of their surfaces is one of the key factors influencing the performance of metal oxide-based humidity sensors. However, the study of different crystal faces of metal oxides is rarely discussed, such as surface energy, charge distribution and reactivity, which can significantly affect their water absorption behavior and thus affect the sensitivity and response time of the humidity sensor. Hence, the present study introduces a meticulously designed SnO2/GO-A sensor that not only validates the successful fabrication of SnO2/GO-A sensor featuring optimized crystal alignment but also delves into the intricate water absorption mechanisms operative across various SnO2 crystal faces. The First-principles results show that (110) face of SnO2 is more sensitive to the water molecule than others. Consequently, due to the (110) crystal surface growth with annealing process, the SnO2/GO-A sensor demonstrates significant performance enhancements, especially in response speed, recovery time, linearity, and repeatability. In particular, the SnO2/GO-A sensor exhibiting faster response and recovery times of 20s and 18s, respectively, which is higher than SnO2 and SnO2/GO sensor. This advantage makes SnO2/GO-A sensor a potential candidate for humidity sensing applications.
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