MoS2 Nanosheets Sensitized with Quantum Dots for Room-Temperature Gas Sensors

Abstract

Highlights

• Highly sensitive and selective room-temperature NO₂ gas sensors by sensitizing MoS₂ nanosheets with PbS quantum dots were demonstrated. In this device architecture, the receptor and transduction function as well as the utility factor of semiconductor gas sensors could be enhanced simultaneously.

• The strategy of sensitizing 2D semiconductors with quantum dots as sensitive and selective receptors for gas molecules may offer a powerful new degree of freedom to the surface and interface engineering of semiconductor gas sensors.

The Internet of things for environment monitoring requires high performance with low power-consumption gas sensors which could be easily integrated into large-scale sensor network. While semiconductor gas sensors have many advantages such as excellent sensitivity and low cost, their application is limited by their high operating temperature. Two-dimensional (2D) layered materials, typically molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) nanosheets, are emerging as promising gas-sensing materials candidates owing to their abundant edge sites and high in-plane carrier mobility. This work aims to overcome the sluggish and weak response as well as incomplete recovery of MoS₂ gas sensors at room temperature by sensitizing MoS₂ nanosheets with PbS quantum dots (QDs). The huge amount of surface dangling bonds of QDs enables them to be ideal receptors for gas molecules. The sensitized MoS₂ gas sensor exhibited fast and recoverable response when operated at room temperature, and the limit of NO₂ detection was estimated to be 94 ppb. The strategy of sensitizing 2D nanosheets with sensitive QD receptors may enhance receptor and transducer functions as well as the utility factor that determine the sensor performance, offering a powerful new degree of freedom to the surface and interface engineering of semiconductor gas sensors.