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

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.