Moly Disulfide Sensors Able to Detect Gases and Chemicals

AZoM.com reported that a research team has designed atomically thin sensors made of molybdenum disulfide. They’re able to selectively detect gases and chemicals.

The team was led by Alexander Balandin of the University of California, Riverside.

As quoted in the market news:

The sensor devices developed by Balandin’s team have two-dimensional channels that are ideal for sensor applications, due to their widely tunable electron concentration and high surface-to-volume ratio. The devices, referred to by the UCR team as “molybdenum disulfide thin-film field-effect transistors (TF-FET)”, were tested by a collaborating team at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

The researchers were able to demonstrate the sensors’ ability to selectively detect methanol, chloroform, acetonitrile, ethanol and toluene vapors.

Beating out graphene:

Molybdenum disulfide has an advantage over graphene for applications like this – it has a bandgap. This is the feature of the electronic structure of a material which, for example, allows semiconductors to be used to make transistors which can be switched on and off.

When exposed to the test gases, MoS2 exhibited a distinct supression in the electrical current that could be passed through it, much like a transistor in its “off” state. Graphene, on the other hand, merely displays weaker fluctuations in the current under the same conditions, due to its lack of a bandgap.

Click here to read the full AZoM.com report.