2D material attached quartz crystal microbalance for sensing SF6 gas flow under humid condition. Issue 17 (1st August 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Leong, A.; Kashan, M.A.M.; Swamy, V.; Ramakrishnan, N.
• Is Part Of: Electronics letters. Volume 56:Issue 17(2020)
• Page Start: 891
• Page End: 893
• Publication Date: 2020-08-01
• Subjects: thin film sensors -- graphene -- boron compounds -- humidity sensors -- gas sensors -- quartz crystal microbalances -- monolayers -- humidity measurement -- chemical variables measurement -- microsensors -- flow sensors -- flow measurement -- sulphur compounds -- electrochemical electrodes -- microfabrication -- microelectrodes -- insulating materials -- wetting -- loss measurement; quartz crystal microbalance -- hexagonal boron nitride–graphene monolayer heterostructure -- SF6 -- heterostructure thin film -- mass flow detection -- SF6 gas flow sensing -- perturbation theory -- gas species‐dependent -- QCM surface -- RH condition -- hg‐QCM sensor -- relative humidity measurement -- QCM electrode surface -- monolayer 2D materials -- QCM sensing characteristics -- electrical insulating gas -- mass flow; Electronics -- Periodicals; 621.381
• DOI: 10.1049/el.2020.1327
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-5194

Abstract

Abstract : The authors report quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) integrated with hexagonal boron nitride–graphene (hg) monolayer heterostructure as a sensor to detect mass flow of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6 ), an important electrical insulating gas, under humid conditions. Their recent work demonstrated an enhancement in QCM sensing characteristics upon attaching monolayer 2D materials onto the QCM electrode surface and its application for improved relative humidity measurement. Here, they extend this approach to detect flow of SF6 gas causing variation in relative humidity. They fabricated a hg‐QCM sensor by transferring the heterostructure thin film onto the QCM electrode surface using a standard wet transfer technique and measured return loss of the QCM under SF6 gas flow at a selected RH condition. The mass flow of the humid SF6 gas effects perturbation in damping at the QCM surface as indicated by changes in the motional resistance of the QCM. The motional resistance changes introduced significant variation in loaded Q ‐factor, the magnitude of which was gas species‐dependent, thus allowing to distinguish SF6 from other common electronics gases.