Radiation Enhancement by Graphene Oxide on Microelectromechanical System Emitters for Highly Selective Gas Sensing

Abstract

Infrared gas sensors have been proven promising for broad applications in Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things. However, the lack of miniaturized light sources with good compatibility and tunable spectral features hinders their widespread utilization. Herein, a strategy is proposed to increase the radiated power from microelectromechanical-based thermal emitters by coating with graphene oxide (GO). The radiation can be substantially enhanced, which partially stems from the high emissivity of GO coating demonstrated by spectroscopic methods. Moreover, the sp 2 structure within GO may induce plasmons and thus couple with photons to produce blackbody radiation and/or new thermal emission sources. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, the GO-coated emitter is integrated into a multifunctional monitoring platform and evaluated for gas detection. The platform exhibits sensitive and highly selective detection toward CO 2 at room temperature with a detection limit of 50 ppm and short response/recovery time, outperforming the state-of-the-art gas sensors. This study demonstrates the emission tailorability of thermal emitters and the feasibility of improving the associated gas sensing property, offering perspectives for designing and fabricating high-end optical sensors with cost-effectiveness and superior performance.

Tunable Narrowband Silicon-Based Thermal Emitter with Excellent High-Temperature Stability Fabricated by Lithography-Free Methods

“…The tunable narrowband thermal emitters, which can improve the conversion efficiency of heat energy converting to photon energy, have attracted abundant attention from researchers due to their potential applications, such as solar thermophotovoltaic (STPV) system [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ], radiative cooling [ 5 , 6 , 7 ], infrared stealth [ 8 , 9 , 10 ], IR gas sensing, etc. [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. Aimed for these applications, emitters with optimized narrowband emission are of vital importance.…”

Perfectly Aligned, Air‐Suspended Nanowire Array Heater and Its Application in an Always‐On Gas Sensor

“…The advent of the Internet of Things has led consumer and industrial demand for a variety of energy‐efficient, high‐performance micro‐ and nanodevices. One of the fundamental components utilized in various functional devices is electrothermal heaters, which provide the thermal energy required to operate heater‐based devices, such as infrared emitters, [ 1,2 ] air‐flow sensors, [ 3,4 ] and gas sensors. [ 5,6 ] In this regard, nanowires have received particular attention as a promising building block in advanced electrothermal heaters, where extraordinary thermal characteristics are essential.…”

Effect of doping graphene oxide on the structure and properties of SiO2 based high emissivity coatings

“…5w LED chip temperature drops by 14°C. Li et al . coated a layer of graphene oxide (GO) material on the surface of micro electromechanical system (MEMS) membrane heaters.…”

“…[14][15][16] Zou et al 17 designed a double-layer thermal coating Al 2 O 3 / graphene oxide coating on Light Emitting Diode (LED).The infrared emissivity of the coating increased from 0.1 (bare aluminum radiator) to 0.83. 5w LED chip temperature drops by 14 C. Li et al 18 coated a layer of graphene oxide (GO) material on the surface of micro electromechanical system (MEMS) membrane heaters. When bias voltage is 1 V, the radiation ability of the emitter with GO coating is about three times higher than that of the original bare emitter.…”