Combining vapour sensors into arrays is an accepted compromise to mitigate poor selectivity of conventional sensors. Here we show individual nanofabricated sensors that not only selectively detect separate vapours in pristine conditions but also quantify these vapours in mixtures, and when blended with a variable moisture background. Our sensor design is inspired by the iridescent nanostructure and gradient surface chemistry of Morpho butterflies and involves physical and chemical design criteria. The physical design involves optical interference and diffraction on the fabricated periodic nanostructures and uses optical loss in the nanostructure to enhance the spectral diversity of reflectance. The chemical design uses spatially controlled nanostructure functionalization. Thus, while quantitation of analytes in the presence of variable backgrounds is challenging for most sensor arrays, we achieve this goal using individual multivariable sensors. These colorimetric sensors can be tuned for numerous vapour sensing scenarios in confined areas or as individual nodes for distributed monitoring.

中文翻译：

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借助由Morpho蝴蝶启发制造的独立光子蒸气传感器，超越传统传感器阵列。

将蒸气传感器组合成阵列是一种公认​​的折衷方案，以减轻常规传感器的不良选择性。在这里，我们展示了单个纳米制造的传感器，这些传感器不仅可以在原始条件下选择性地检测出单独的蒸气，而且还可以在混合物中以及与可变湿度背景混合时对这些蒸气进行量化。我们的传感器设计受到Morpho蝴蝶的虹彩纳米结构和梯度表面化学的启发，涉及物理和化学设计标准。物理设计涉及在制造的周期性纳米结构上的光学干涉和衍射，并利用纳米结构中的光学损耗来提高反射率的光谱多样性。化学设计使用空间控制的纳米结构功能化。因此，尽管对于大多数传感器阵列而言，在可变背景下分析物的定量分析具有挑战性，但我们使用单个多变量传感器实现了这一目标。这些比色传感器可以针对密闭区域中的多种蒸汽感测场景进行调整，也可以针对分布式监控的单个节点进行调整。