A new strategy to minimize humidity influences on acoustic wave ultraviolet sensors using ZnO nanowires wrapped with hydrophobic silica nanoparticles

Gao, Yihao, Zhou, Jian, Ji, Zhangbin, Liu, Yanghui, Cao, Rongtao, Zhou, Fengling, Tan, Kaitao, Duan, Huigao and Fu, Yong Qing (2022) A new strategy to minimize humidity influences on acoustic wave ultraviolet sensors using ZnO nanowires wrapped with hydrophobic silica nanoparticles. Microsystems and Nanoengineering, 8 (1). p. 121. ISSN 2055-7434

[img]
Preview
Text
s41378-022-00455-2.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Download (3MB) | Preview
[img] Text
Microsystems_and_Nanoengineering_final_Manuscript.pdf - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only

Download (1MB) | Request a copy
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-022-00455-2

Abstract

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) technology has been widely developed for ultraviolet (UV) detection due to its advantages of miniaturization, portability, potential to be integrated with microelectronics, and passive/wireless capabilities. To enhance UV sensitivity, nanowires (NWs), such as ZnO, are often applied to enhance SAW-based UV detection due to their highly porous and interconnected 3D network structures and good UV sensitivity. However, ZnO NWs are normally hydrophilic, and thus, changes in environmental parameters such as humidity will significantly influence the detection precision and sensitivity of SAW-based UV sensors. To solve this issue, in this work, we proposed a new strategy using ZnO NWs wrapped with hydrophobic silica nanoparticles as the effective sensing layer. Analysis of the distribution and chemical bonds of these hydrophobic silica nanoparticles showed that numerous C-F bonds (which are hydrophobic) were found on the surface of the sensitive layer, which effectively blocked the adsorption of water molecules onto the ZnO NWs. This new sensing layer design minimizes the influence of humidity on the ZnO NW-based UV sensor within the relative humidity range of 10–70%. The sensor showed a UV sensitivity of 9.53 ppm (mW/cm2)−1, with high linearity (R2 value of 0.99904), small hysteresis (<1.65%) and good repeatability. This work solves the long-term dilemma of ZnO NW-based sensors, which are often sensitive to humidity changes.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Funding information: This work was supported by the NSFC (No.52075162), The Program of New and High-tech Industry of Hunan Province(2020GK2015, 2021GK4014), The Joint Fund Project of the Ministry of Education, The Excellent Youth Fund of Hunan Province (2021JJ20018), the Key Research & Development Program of Guangdong Province (2020B0101040002), the Engineering Physics and Science Research Council of UK (EPSRC EP/P018998/1) and International Exchange Grant (IEC/NSFC/201078) through Royal Society and the NSFC.
Subjects: F200 Materials Science
F300 Physics
Department: Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering
Depositing User: John Coen
Date Deposited: 08 Sep 2022 14:42
Last Modified: 30 Nov 2022 15:00
URI: https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/50071

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics