Piezoresistive Effect in Plasma-Doping of Graphene Sheet for High-Performance Flexible Pressure Sensing Application

Abstract

This paper presents a straightforward plasma treatment modification of graphene with an enhanced piezoresistive effect for the realization of a high-performance pressure sensor. The changes in the graphene in terms of its morphology, structure, chemical composition, and electrical properties after the NH₃/Ar plasma treatment were investigated in detail. Through a sufficient plasma treatment condition, our studies demonstrated that plasma-treated graphene sheet exhibits a significant increase in sensitivity by one order of magnitude compared to that of the unmodified graphene sheet. The plasma-doping introduced nitrogen (N) atoms inside the graphene structure and was found to play a significant role in enhancing the pressure sensing performance due to the tunneling behavior from the localized defects. The high sensitivity and good robustness demonstrated by the plasma-treated graphene sensor suggest a promising route for simple, low-cost, and ultrahigh resolution flexible sensors.