Phonon-enhanced mid-infrared CO2 gas sensing using boron nitride nanoresonators

Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) hosts long-lived phonon polaritons, yielding a strong mid-infrared (mid-IR) electric field enhancement and concentration on the nanometer scale. It is thus a promising material for highly sensitive mid-IR sensing and spectroscopy. In addition, hBN possesses high chemica...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Bareza, Nestor Jr., Paulillo, Bruno, Slipchenko, Tetiana, Autore, Marta, Dolado, Irene, Liu, Song, Edgar, James H., Vélez, Saül, Martín-Moreno, Luis, Hillenbrand, Rainer, Pruneri, Valerio
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/280614
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/280614
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Boron nitride
SEIRA
Phonon-polaritons
Gas sensor
Descripción
Sumario:Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) hosts long-lived phonon polaritons, yielding a strong mid-infrared (mid-IR) electric field enhancement and concentration on the nanometer scale. It is thus a promising material for highly sensitive mid-IR sensing and spectroscopy. In addition, hBN possesses high chemical and thermal stability as well as mechanical durability, making it suitable for operation in demanding environments. In this work, we demonstrate a mid-IR CO2 gas sensor exploiting phonon polariton (PhP) modes in hBN nanoresonators functionalized by a thin CO2-adsorbing polyethylenimine (PEI) layer. We find that the PhP resonance shifts to lower frequency, weakens, and broadens for increasing CO2 concentrations, which are related to the change of the permittivity of PEI upon CO2 adsorption. Moreover, the PhP resonance exhibits a high signal-to-noise ratio even for small ribbon arrays of 30 × 30 μm2. Our results show the potential of hBN nanoresonators to become a novel platform for miniaturized phonon-enhanced SEIRA gas sensors.