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Nano Research 2023, 16(7): 10279-10286 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5837-1
Research Article | Issue | Published: 30 June 2023

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

Show Author's Information Hang Liu1,§,  Jinxu Qin1,§,  Xigui Yang1,2( ),  Chaofan Lv1,  Wentao Huang1,  Fukui Li1,  Chuang Zhang1,  Yanran Wu1,  Lin Dong1,  Chongxin Shan1,2( )
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
Institute of Quantum materials and Physics, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou 450046, China

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

Keywords:
boron nitride, humidity sensors, speech recognition, contactless detection
Topics:
Nanosensors
Cite this article:
Liu H, Qin J, Yang X, et al. Highly sensitive humidity sensors based on hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets for contactless sensing. Nano Research, 2023, 16(7): 10279-10286. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-5837-1
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

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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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

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

Show Author's information Hang Liu1,§, Jinxu Qin1,§, Xigui Yang1,2( ), Chaofan Lv1, Wentao Huang1, Fukui Li1, Chuang Zhang1, Yanran Wu1, Lin Dong1, Chongxin Shan1,2( )
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
Institute of Quantum materials and Physics, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou 450046, China

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

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.

Keywords: boron nitride, humidity sensors, speech recognition, contactless detection

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 23 March 2023
Revised: 15 May 2023
Accepted: 17 May 2023
Published: 30 June 2023
Issue date: July 2023

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2023

Acknowledgements

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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