Enhanced sensing performance of armchair stanene nanoribbons for lung cancer early detection using an electric field

Abstract

In this study, we analyze the effect of a uniform external electric field on the sensing behavior of armchair stanene nanoribbons (ASnNRs) for early detection of lung cancer biomarkers. The Density functional theory (DFT) and non-equilibrium Green function (NEGF) methods are used to study the sensing behavior. We use E_z = 0.4 V Å⁻¹ and E_z = −0.4 V Å⁻¹ as vertical electric fields and E_y = 0.08 V Å⁻¹ and E_y = −0.08 V Å⁻¹ as transverse electric fields. Our findings demonstrate that applying an electric field in a negative/positive direction considerably increases/decreases the magnitude of the adsorption energy and the transferred charge. In the presence of E_z = 0.4 V Å⁻¹ and E_y = −0.08 V Å⁻¹, a substantial decrease in current was observed. Furthermore, the current curves become more distinguishable compared to the absence of electric fields. The computed results indicate that the negative direction of the applied electric field enhanced the sensitivity and selectivity of ASnNRs for the detection of lung cancer-related biomarkers. The computed results also show that using E_z = −0.4 V Å⁻¹ reduces the adsorption energy to E_ads = −8.89 eV and enhances the sensitivity up to 41.83% for styrene detection, demonstrating an improvement in the sensing performance compared to the situation without an electric field. These findings have practical implications, as they can be used to develop highly sensitive early-detection gas sensors, potentially saving human lives.