Synergistic integration of plasmonic and perovskite nanosurfaces to create a multi-gas sensor for environmental monitoring

Abstract

The escalating levels of air pollution present a critical challenge, posing significant risks to both public health and environmental sustainability. However, recent gas detection methodologies often have inadequate sensitivity and specificity, failing to accurately identify low concentrations of harmful pollutants in real time. Therefore, in this work a (TiO₂/ZrO₂)^N/2/CsAgBr₃/(TiO₂/ZrO₂)^N/2-based one dimensional photonic crystal (1D-PC) gas sensor is proposed for detecting key environmental pollutants, specifically ammonia (NH₃), methane (CH₄), carbon disulfide (CS₂), and chloroform (CHCl₃). Using the transfer matrix method (TMM) and systematically optimizing critical parameters – including the angle of incidence, dielectric layer composition, thickness of the defect layer, and gas concentration – the computational results reveal a maximum sensitivity of 2170 nm per RIU, figure of merit of 500/RIU, detection accuracy of 0.815, and 0.24 quality factor. These findings underscore the potential of the proposed gas sensor as a robust tool for monitoring environmental concentrations of hazardous compounds.