Hysteresis-Free Nanoplasmonic Pd-Au Alloy Hydrogen Sensors
Journal article, 2015

The recent market introduction of hydrogen fuel cell cars and the prospect of a hydrogen economy have drastically accelerated the need for safe and accurate detection of hydrogen. In this Letter, we investigate the use of arrays of nanofabricated Pd-Au alloy nanoparticles as plasmonic optical hydrogen sensors. By increasing the amount of Au in the alloy nanoparticles up to 25 atom %, we are able to suppress the hysteresis between hydrogen absorption and desorption, thereby increasing the sensor accuracy to below 5% throughout the investigated 1 mbar to 1 bar hydrogen pressure range. Furthermore, we observe an 8-fold absolute sensitivity enhancement at low hydrogen pressures compared to sensors made of pure Pd, and an improved sensor response time to below one second within the 0-40 mbar pressure range, that is, below the flammability limit, by engineering the nanoparticle size.

Hydrogen sensing

palladium

localized surface plasmon resonance

plasmonic sensing

alloy nanoparticles

Author

Carl Wadell

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Chemical Physics

Ferry Nugroho

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Chemical Physics

Emil Lidström

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Chemical Physics

Beniamino Iandolo

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Jakob B. Wagner

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Christoph Langhammer

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Chemical Physics

Nano Letters

1530-6984 (ISSN) 1530-6992 (eISSN)

Vol. 15 5 3563-3570

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Subject Categories

Physical Chemistry

Nano Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01053

More information

Latest update

11/23/2018