Infrared Thermal Sensor Using Electrosprayed Silver Nanowires and Ruthenium Complex

Thermometric sensors are widely used in industrial and medical applications. Temperature-dependent phosphors are progressively chosen materials in thermal sensors yet posing major constraints due to relatively low fluorescence emission. Plasmonic enhancements are sparking alternatives in strengthening light-matter interaction and energetically revamping the functionalities of phosphors with real potencies. Herein, we proposed an infrared (IR) thermal sensor using a highly temperature-sensitive phosphor. For the first time, silver nanowires (AgNWs) were employed to embed in ruthenium complex temperature sensitive paint (TSP) with a matrix of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) to build plasmonic enhanced fluorescent thermal sensor. Upon optimizing the concentration of AgNWs incorporation, the electrosprayed AgNWs@Ru-PVDF film demonstrated an increase of an order of magnitude in fluorescence intensity. Besides, the thermal sensor integrated with such film delivered a temperature sensitivity of 4.01% ${K}^{-{1}}$ at room temperature and a detectivity ${D} ^{\ast }$ of $7.82\times 10^{{7}}$ cm $\cdot $ ${Hz}^{{1}/{2}}$ /W. Compared with control group without AgNWs addition, an 18% enhancement in temperature sensitivity, 29% enhancement in ${D} ^{\ast }$ , a 30% reduction in response time, and a 142% increase in fluorescence intensity were successfully obtained, which suggests its promising in thermal imaging application.