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Highly sensitive humidity sensors based on hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets for contactless sensing

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Abstract

Humidity sensors with high sensitivity, rapid response, and facile fabrication process for contactless sensing applications have received considerable attention in recent years. Herein, humidity sensors based on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets that are synthesized by a facile ultrasonic process have been fabricated, which display an ultrahigh sensitivity of 28,384% at 85% relative humidity (RH), rapid response/recovery time (3.0/5.5 s), and long-term stability in a wide humidity detection range (11%–85% RH), superior to most of the reported humidity sensors. The high sensitivity can be ascribed to the massive hydrophilic functional groups absorbed on the h-BN nanosheet surface. Benefiting from the high humidity sensing performances, contactless Morse code messaging and human writing and speech recognition have been demonstrated. This work demonstrates the great potential of the high-performance h-BN nanosheet-based humidity sensors for future contactless sensing devices.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 12174348, U21A2070, and 62027816), the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (No. 2021QNRC001), the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province (No. 212300410410), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. 2018M630830 and 2019T120631).

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  1. Hang Liu and Jinxu Qin contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Henan Key Laboratory of Diamond Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Ministry of Education, School of Physics & Microelectronics, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450052, China

    Hang Liu, Jinxu Qin, Xigui Yang, Chaofan Lv, Wentao Huang, Fukui Li, Chuang Zhang, Yanran Wu, Lin Dong & Chongxin Shan

  2. Institute of Quantum materials and Physics, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou, 450046, China

    Xigui Yang & Chongxin Shan

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  1. Hang Liu
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  2. Jinxu Qin
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Correspondence to Xigui Yang or Chongxin Shan.

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Liu, H., Qin, J., Yang, X. et al. Highly sensitive humidity sensors based on hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets for contactless sensing. Nano Res. 16, 10279–10286 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5837-1

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