Phenol and Methanol Detector Based on Pristine Graphene Nano-sheet: A First Principles Study

Abstract

Over the last decade graphene and its derivatives have stimulated the interest of researchers due to their extraordinary electrical, optical and chemical properties. Graphene has emerged as a potential candidate for electronic sensors and optical sensors applications. The purpose of the work presented in this article is to contribute in this novel field by simulating graphene nano-sheet based sensor to detect phenol and methanol molecules. QuantumWise Atomistix Toolkit (ATK) software has been used to carry out the sensor simulations. A significant change in the density of states and conductivity of the graphene have been noticed in the proximity of the target molecules. This change in the conductivity of graphene nano-sheet has been used as a detection signal. These simulations lay the groundwork for our physical experiments, which are targeted to produce a cheap sensor.