5.7 GHz Ultrasensitive Shear Horizontal-Surface Acoustic Wave Humidity Sensor Based on LiNbO3/SiO2/SiC Heterostructures with a Sensitive Layer of Polyethyleneimine-SiO2 Nanocomposites

Yanghui Liu, Jian Zhou*, Zhangbin Ji, Fengling Zhuo, Shengyu Wen, Yiqin Chen, Yongqing (Richard) Fu, Huigao Duan

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
9 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Humidity sensing and water molecule monitoring have become hot research topics attributed to their potential applications in monitoring breathing/physiological conditions of humans, air conditioning in greenhouses, and soil moisture in agriculture. However, there is a huge challenge for highly sensitive and precision humidity detection with wireless and fast responsive capabilities. In this work, a hybrid/synergistic strategy was proposed using a LiNbO3/SiO2/SiC heterostructure to generate shear-horizontal (SH) surface acoustic waves (SAWs) and using a nanocomposite of polyethylenimine-silicon dioxide nanoparticles (PEI-SiO2 NPs) to form a sensitive layer, thus achieving an ultrahigh sensitivity of SAW humidity sensors. Ultrahigh frequencies (1∼15 GHz) of SAW devices were obtained on a high-velocity heterostructure of LiNbO3/SiO2/SiC. Among the multimodal wave modes, we selected SH waves for humidity sensing and achieved a high mass-sensitivity of 5383 MHz · mm2 · μg–1. With the PEI-SiO2 NP composite as the sensitive layer, an ultrahigh sensitivity of 2.02 MHz/% RH was obtained, which is two orders of magnitude higher than those of the conventional SAW humidity sensors (∼202.5 MHz frequency) within a humidity range of 20–80% RH.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)35422-35429
Number of pages8
JournalACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume15
Issue number29
Early online date18 Jul 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 26 Jul 2023

Keywords

  • SAW
  • SH wave
  • high sensitivity
  • humidity sensor
  • ultrahigh frequency

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