Design of p–p heterojunctions based on CuO decorated WS 2 nanosheets for sensitive NH 3 gas sensing at room temperature

Abstract Tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ) nanosheets (NSs) have become a promising room-temperature gas sensor candidate due to their inherent high surface-to-volume ratio, tunable electrical properties, and high on-state current density. For further practical applications of WS 2 -based gas sensors, it is still necessary to overcome the insensitive response and incomplete recovery at room temperature. In this work, we controllably synthesized high-performance ammonia (NH 3 ) gas sensor based on CuO decorated WS 2 NSs. The optimized p–p WS 2 /CuO heterojunctions improve the surface catalytic effect, thereby enhancing the gas-sensing performance. The pure WS 2 NSs-based gas sensors showed a low response and an incomplete recovery in the case of NH 3 sensing. After the functionalization of CuO nanoparticles, the WS 2 /CuO heterostructure-based gas sensor exhibits an improved response value of 40.5% to 5 ppm NH 3 and full recoverability without any external assistance. Density functional theory calculations illustrate that the adsorption of CuO for NH 3 is much superior to WS 2 . The p–p heterojunctions strategy demonstrated in this work has great potential in the design of sensitive materials for gas sensors, and provides useful guidance for enhancing the room-temperature sensitivity and recoverability.