Stable and Fast-Response Capacitive Humidity Sensors Based on a ZnO Nanopowder/PVP-RGO Multilayer

In this paper, capacitive-type humidity sensors were prepared by sequentially drop-coating the aqueous suspensions of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanopowders and polyvinyl pyrrolidone–reduced graphene oxide (PVP-RGO) nanocomposites onto interdigitated electrodes. Significant improvements in both sensitivity an...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hui Yang, Qiangqiang Ye, Ruixue Zeng, Junkai Zhang, Lei Yue, Ming Xu, Zhi-Jun Qiu, Dongping Wu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2017-10-01
Series:Sensors
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/17/10/2415
Description
Summary:In this paper, capacitive-type humidity sensors were prepared by sequentially drop-coating the aqueous suspensions of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanopowders and polyvinyl pyrrolidone–reduced graphene oxide (PVP-RGO) nanocomposites onto interdigitated electrodes. Significant improvements in both sensitivity and linearity were achieved for the ZnO/PVP-RGO sensors compared with the PVP-RGO/ZnO, PVP-RGO, and ZnO counterparts. Moreover, the produced ZnO/PVP-RGO sensors exhibited rather small hysteresis, fast response-recovery time, and long-term stability. Based on morphological and structural analyses, it can be inferred that the excellent humidity sensing properties of the ZnO/PVP-RGO sensors may be attributed to the high surface-to-volume ratio of the multilayer structure and the supporting roles of the PVP-RGO nanocomposites. The results in this work hence provide adequate guidelines for designing high-performance humidity sensors that make use of the multilayer structure of semiconductor oxide materials and PVP-RGO nanocomposites.
ISSN:1424-8220