The Department of Chemical Engineering and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2013 Apr 24;5(8):3431-40. doi: 10.1021/am4005144. Epub 2013 Apr 4.
We show that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) based field effect transistor (FET) arrays can serve as excellent chemical sensors for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) under confounding humidity conditions. Using these sensors, w/o complementary pattern recognition methods, we study the ability of PAH-FET(s) to: (i) discriminate between aromatic and non-aromatic VOCs; (ii) distinguish polar and non-polar non-aromatic compounds; and to (iii) identify specific VOCs within the subgroups (i.e., aromatic compounds, polar non-aromatic compounds, non-polar non-aromatic compounds). We further study the effect of water vapor on the sensor array's discriminative ability and derive patterns that are stable when exposed to different constant values of background humidity. Patterns based on different independent electronic features from an array of PAH-FETs may bring us one step closer to creating a unique fingerprint for individual VOCs in real-world applications in atmospheres with varying levels of humidity.
我们表明，基于多环芳烃（PAH）的场效应晶体管（FET）阵列可以作为出色的化学传感器，用于在复杂湿度条件下检测挥发性有机化合物（VOC）。使用这些传感器，无需互补的模式识别方法，我们研究了 PAH-FET（s）的以下能力：（i）区分芳香族和非芳香族 VOC；（ii）区分极性和非极性非芳香族化合物；以及（iii）识别亚组内的特定 VOC（即芳香族化合物、极性非芳香族化合物、非极性非芳香族化合物）。我们进一步研究了水蒸气对传感器阵列辨别能力的影响，并得出了在暴露于不同恒定背景湿度值时仍保持稳定的模式。基于 PAH-FET 阵列中不同独立电子特性的模式可能使我们更接近于在具有不同湿度水平的大气中为单个 VOC 创建独特的指纹。
