Humidity sensing behavior of silicon nanowires with hexamethyldisilazane modification

In this paper, the sensing behavior of the capacitive humidity sensors based on silicon nanowires with and without hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) modification has been investigated. The sensing mechanism is based on the capacitance variations due to the adsorption/desorption of water molecules among silicon nanowires. The effect of HMDS modification on the sensorʹs performance was discussed. The study indicated that after HMDS treatment, the sensorʹs surface turns into hydrophobic and the sensorʹs performance such as the linearity, hysteresis and response time can be improved remarkably.