Fabrication of oxygen-doped MoSe₂ hierarchical nanosheets for highly sensitive and selective detection of trace trimethylamine at room temperature in air

Intelligent gas sensors based on the layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted great interest in the field of gas sensing due to their multiple active sites, fast electron, mass transfer capability and large surface-to-volume ratio. However, conventional TMDs-based sensors typically work at elevated temperature in inert atmosphere, which would largely limit the corresponding practical applications. Herein, novel oxygen-doped MoSe₂ hierarchical nanostructures composed of ultrathin nanosheets with large specific surface area have been designed and generated typically at 200 °C in air for fast and facile gas sensing of trimethylamine (TMA), effectively. Benefited from the gas-accessible hierarchical morphology and high surface area with abundant nanochannels, highly sensitive and selective detection of trace TMA has been achieved under ambient condition, and as detected the theoretical limit of detection (LOD) is 8 ppb, which is the lowest for TMA detection under ambient condition among the reported studies. The mechanism of oxygen doping on the improved gas-sensing performance has been investigated, revealing that the oxygen doping could greatly optimize the electronic structure, thus regulate the Fermi level of MoSe₂ as well as the affinity between TMA molecule and sensor surface. It is expected that the oxygen doping strategy developed for the highly efficient gas sensors based on TMDs in present work may also be applicable to other types of gas-sensing semiconductors, which could open up a new direction for the rational design of high-performance gas sensors working under ambient condition.