Photoactivated Mixed In-Plane and Edge-Enriched p-Type MoS2 Flake-Based NO2 Sensor Working at Room Temperature

Toxic gases are produced during the burning of fossil fuels. Room temperature (RT) fast detection of toxic gases is still challenging. Recently, MoS2 transition metal dichalcogenides have sparked great attention in the research community due to their performance in gas sensing applications. However, MoS2 based gas sensors still suffer from long response and recovery times, especially at RT. Considering this challenge, here, we report photoactivated highly reversible and fast detection of NO2 sensors at room temperature (RT) by using mixed in-plane and edge-enriched p-MoS2 flakes (mixed MoS2). The sensor showed fast response with good sensitivity of ∼10.36% for 10 ppm of NO2 at RT without complete recovery. However, complete recovery was obtained with better sensor performance under UV light illumination at RT. The UV assisted NO2 sensing showed improved performance in terms of fast response and recovery kinetics with enhanced sensitivity to 10 ppm NO2 concentration. The sensor performance is also investigated under thermal energy, and a better sensor performance with reduced sensitivity and high selectivity toward NO2 was observed. A detailed gas sensing mechanism based on the density functional theory (DFT) calculations for favorable NO2 adsorption sites on in-plane and edge-enriched MoS2 flakes is proposed. This study revealed the role of favorable adsorption sites in MoS2 flakes for the enhanced interaction of target gases and developed a highly sensitive, reversible, and fast gas sensor for next-generation toxic gases at room temperature.