Recently, Cheng Hang, an undergraduate majoring in Process Equipment and Control Engineering from the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation of NEU, published an academic paper entitled Gas Sensor Based on Photothermocatalytic Effect for Ammonia Detection with High Response in IEEE Sensors Journal as the first author. It was also selected as the only Featured Article among the 102 articles in the current issue. This paper is the result of the project Photostimulated Highly Sensitive Electronic Nose Based on Tungsten Disulfide Micro and Nano Sensitive Materials in the 16th batch of innovation training projects for NEU students, and the project was rated excellent in the final examination and acceptance. Project supervisor Yuan Zhenyu from the College of Information Science and Engineering is the corresponding author of the paper. Other main authors include undergraduate Liu Weixin from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, undergraduates Tan Bowen, Chen Ruiyang and Liu Botao as well as doctoral student Zhang Renze from the College of Information Science and Engineering, and undergraduate He Muyan from the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation.
Founded in 2001, IEEE Sensors Journal is an authoritative journal in the field of sensor engineering and technology. It solicits contributions related to such sensor technologies as signal processing and analysis, communications, network and broadcast technologies, components, circuits, devices and systems, robotics and control systems. IEEE Sensors Journal had an impact factor of 4.325 and JCR of Q1 in 2022. Since 2020, a Featured Article would be selected in each issue of IEEE Sensors Journal to promote hot topics and excellent articles, and the selected articles would be available for Open Access in 6 months.
It is reported that finding materials having excellent sensitive properties and compatibility with equipment integration is the most effective way to improve the performance of gas sensors. Illumination, as a novel method, utilizes the excellent photoelectric properties of materials. Its superiority and great potential in the field of illumination have been proved. In this paper, four different light sources are used to improve the performance of WS2-based gas sensors, and the effects of different light sources on the improvement of the sensitivity of sensors are systematically analyzed. In addition, the gas sensing mechanism of photothermal excitation is revealed through the correlation between the band gap width of the photoelectric material and the wavelength of the excited light. The process of experimental material preparation is simple and clear. The illumination method can not only lower the optimal working temperature of WS2 sensors, but also improve the response ratio to some extent. It has reference value for the study of high-sensitivity gas sensors based on photothermal catalytic effect.
