Pt decorated MoS₂ nanoflakes for ultrasensitive resistive humidity sensor

In this work, we report the fabrication of a low power, humidity sensor where platinum nanoparticles (NPs) decorated few-layered molybdenum disulphide (MoS₂) nanoflakes have been used as the sensing layer. A mixed solvent was used to exfoliate the nanoflakes from the bulk powder. Then the Pt/MoS₂ composites were prepared by reducing Pt NPs from chloroplatinic acid hexahydrate using a novel reduction technique using sulphide salt. The successful reduction and composite preparation were confirmed using various material characterization tools like scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and UV–visible spectroscopy. The humidity sensors were prepared by drop-coating the Pt-decorated MoS₂ on gold interdigitated electrodes and then exposed to various levels of relative humidity (RH). Composites with different weight ratios of Pt were tested and the best response was shown by the Pt/MoS₂ (0.25:1) sample with a record high response of ∼4000 times at 85% RH. The response and recovery times were ∼92 s and ∼154 s respectively with repeatable behaviour. The sensor performance was found to be stable when tested over a few months. The underlying sensing mechanisms along with detailed characterization of the various composites have been discussed. (paper)