Highly stable and ultrafast hydrogen gas sensor based on 15 nm nanogaps switching in a palladium-gold nanoribbons array

Abstract

Palladium (Pd) nanogap hydrogen gas (H2) sensors based on the large volume expansion of β phase palladium hydride (β-PdH) are highly promising, owing to their fast and accurate sensing capability at room temperature in air. However, such sensors do not work well at H2 concentrations below 1%. At such low H2 concentrations, Pd exists as α-PdH, which has a slow and insufficient volume expansion and cannot completely close nanogaps. Furthermore, the lattice strains induced from the phase transition (α-PdH → β-PdH) behavior degrade the stable and repeatable long-term sensing capability. Here, these issues are resolved by fabricating an array of periodically aligned alloyed palladium–gold nanoribbons (PdAu NRB) with uniform 15 nm nanogaps. The PdAu NRB sensor enables highly stable and ultrafast H2 sensing at the full detection range of H2 concentrations from 0.005% to 10% along with the excellent limit of detection (≈0.0027%), which is sufficiently maintained even after seven months of storage in ambient atmosphere. These breakthrough results will pave the way for developing a practical high-performance H2 sensor chip in the future hydrogen era.