Recent Advances in Ferroelectric Nanosensors: Toward Sensitive Detection of Gas, Mechanothermal Signals, and Radiation

Abstract

A spontaneous polarization that occurs below the Curie temperature is characteristic for ferroelectric materials. This polarization is sensitive to many external conditions such as an electric field, mechanical deformation, temperature, and chemical and biological factors. Therefore, bulk ferroelectric materials have been used for decades in sensors and actuators. Recently, special attention has been paid to ferroelectric nanostructures that represent better sensing properties than their bulk counterparts. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of applications of nanoferroelectrics in different types of sensors, e.g., gas sensors and piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and piezoresistive sensors of mechanothermal signals, as well as photodetectors, ionizing radiation detectors, and biosensors. The recent achievements and challenges in these fields are summarized. This review also outlines the prospects for future development of sensors based on nanosized ferroelectrics.

A Ferroelectric-Photovoltaic Effect in SbSI Nanowires

“…The acquisition of the data was realized using a PC computer with a GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) and an appropriate program in LabView (National Instruments, Austin, TX, USA). All electrical measurements were performed in a test chamber in a vacuum ( p = 2·× 10 −3 Pa) produced by TW70H turbomolecular vacuum pump (Prevac, Rogow, Poland) in order to eliminate the influence of humidity [47] and gas adsorption [2,7] on electrical properties of SbSI nanowires. A constant operating temperature T = 268 K of the SbSI FE-PV device was maintained using a HAAKE DC30 thermostat with a Kessel HAAKE K20 circulator (Thermo Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA), and Pt-100 sensor with 211 temperature controller (Lake Shore, Columbus, OH, USA).…”

“…They exhibit a wide spectrum of outstanding properties, among others, ferroelectric photovoltaicity, pyroelectricity, high non-linear optical activity, ferroelasticity, and direct and inverse piezoelectricity. Due to this unique combination of different properties, ferroelectric nanomaterials are attractive for application in sensors of mechanothermal signals [2], pyroelectric harvesters for waste heat recovery [3], piezoelectric nanogenerators [4,5], non-volatile memories [6], gas sensors [7,8], photodetectors [2,9], and solar cells [10,11,12].…”

Humidity Effects on Domain Structure and Polarization Switching of Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3)O3-x%PbTiO3 (PZN-x%PT) Single Crystals

“…In the last two decades, thanks to advances in humidity sensor technology [ 16 , 17 , 18 ], humidity’s effects on ferroelectric materials have attracted numerous research interests and have been studied by theoretical, experimental, and numerical simulation methods [ 11 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. It is generally believed that the formation of a water meniscus between the tip and the sample surface plays a crucial role in the SPM characterization of ferroelectric materials in ambient humid atmospheres [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ].…”

An Effective Self-Powered Piezoelectric Sensor for Monitoring Basketball Skills

“…With the development of IoT revolution, numerous flexible electronic devices have been displayed. Especial, the devices can be attached on human skin to establish human-computer interaction and achieve real-time transmission of big data [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. It is worth noting that these multi-purpose sensors can be applied in both daily life and the field of motion monitoring [ 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ].…”