Design of FerroElectric MEMS energy harvesting devices

Waste heat is a widely available but little used source of power. Converting a thermal gradient into electricity is conventionally done using the Seebeck effect, but devices that use this effect are naturally inefficient. An alternate approach uses microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) to generate movement and time-varying temperature from a constant temperature gradient. Ferroelectric materials can harvest electricity from moving structures and temperature variations. This concept was realized using traditional silicon microprocessing techniques. A silicon on insulator (SOI) wafer was backside Deep Reactive Ion Etched (DRIE) to form a one mm2 by 7 micron thick silicon/silicon dioxide membrane. Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) was deposited on the membrane and acts as a ferroelectric material. Heating the bulk of the SOI substrate causes an increase in stress and upward deflection of the membrane. The membrane then enters into contact with a cold sink fixed above the substrate. Cooling of the membrane from contact with the cold sink causes actuation downwards of the membrane. The alternating heating and cooling of the PZT layer generates electricity from the pyroelectric effect. The actuation of the membrane generates stress on the PZT layer resulting in electricity from the piezoelectric effect

Computational homogenization of fibrous piezoelectric materials

Flexible piezoelectric devices made of polymeric materials are widely used for micro- and nano-electro-mechanical systems. In particular, numerous recent applications concern energy harvesting. Due to the importance of computational modeling to understand the influence that microscale geometry and constitutive variables exert on the macroscopic behavior, a numerical approach is developed here for multiscale and multiphysics modeling of thin piezoelectric sheets made of aligned arrays of polymeric nanofibers, manufactured by electrospinning. At the microscale, the representative volume element consists in piezoelectric polymeric nanofibers, assumed to feature a piezoelastic behavior and subjected to electromechanical contact constraints. The latter are incorporated into the virtual work equations by formulating suitable electric, mechanical and coupling potentials and the constraints are enforced by using the penalty method. From the solution of the micro-scale boundary value problem, a suitable scale transition procedure leads to identifying the performance of a macroscopic thin piezoelectric shell element.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figure

Cooperativity in the enhanced piezoelectric response of polymer nanowires

We provide a detailed insight into piezoelectric energy generation from arrays of polymer nanofibers. For sake of comparison, we firstly measure individual poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFe)) fibers at well-defined levels of compressive stress. Under an applied load of 2 mN, single nanostructures generate a voltage of 0.45 mV. We show that under the same load conditions, fibers in dense arrays exhibit a voltage output higher by about two orders of magnitude. Numerical modelling studies demonstrate that the enhancement of the piezoelectric response is a general phenomenon associated to the electromechanical interaction among adjacent fibers, namely a cooperative effect depending on specific geometrical parameters. This establishes new design rules for next piezoelectric nano-generators and sensors.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures, 1 tabl

Kinetic energy harvesting

This paper reviews kinetic energy harvesting as a potential localised power supply for wireless applications. Harvesting devices are typically implemented as resonant devices of which the power output depends upon the size of the inertial mass, the frequency and amplitude of the driving vibrations, the maximum available mass displacement and the damping. Three transduction mechanisms are currently primarily employed to convert mechanical into electrical energy: electromagnetic, piezoelectric and electrostatic. Piezoelectric and electrostatic mechanisms are best suited to small size MEMS implementations, but the power output from such devices is at present limited to a few microwatts. An electromagnetic generator implemented with discrete components has produced a power 120 ?W with the highest recorded efficiency to date of 51% for a device of this size reported to date. The packaged device is 0.8 cm3 and weighs 1.6 grams. The suitability of the technology in space applications will be determined by the nature of the available kinetic energy and the required level of output power. A radioactively coupled device may present an opportunity where suitable vibrations do not exist

Future of smart cardiovascular implants

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in Western society. Recent technological advances have opened the opportunity of developing new and innovative smart stent devices that have advanced electrical properties that can improve diagnosis and even treatment of previously intractable conditions, such as central line access failure, atherosclerosis and reporting on vascular grafts for renal dialysis. Here we review the latest advances in the field of cardiovascular medical implants, providing a broad overview of the application of their use in the context of cardiovascular disease rather than an in-depth analysis of the current state of the art. We cover their powering, communication and the challenges faced in their fabrication. We focus specifically on those devices required to maintain vascular access such as ones used to treat arterial disease, a major source of heart attacks and strokes. We look forward to advances in these technologies in the future and their implementation to improve the human condition

Plucked piezoelectric bimorphs for knee-joint energy harvesting: modelling and experimental validation

The modern drive towards mobility and wireless devices is motivating intensive research in energy harvesting technologies. To reduce the battery burden on people, we propose the adoption of a frequency up-conversion strategy for a new piezoelectric wearable energy harvester. Frequency up-conversion increases efficiency because the piezoelectric devices are permitted to vibrate at resonance even if the input excitation occurs at much lower frequency. Mechanical plucking-based frequency up-conversion is obtained by deflecting the piezoelectric bimorph via a plectrum, then rapidly releasing it so that it can vibrate unhindered; during the following oscillatory cycles, part of the mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy. In order to guide the design of such a harvester, we have modelled with finite element methods the response and power generation of a piezoelectric bimorph while it is plucked. The model permits the analysis of the effects of the speed of deflection as well as the prediction of the energy produced and its dependence on the electrical load. An experimental rig has been set up to observe the response of the bimorph in the harvester. A PZT-5H bimorph was used for the experiments. Measurements of tip velocity, voltage output and energy dissipated across a resistor are reported. Comparisons of the experimental results with the model predictions are very successful and prove the validity of the model

Maximum performance of piezoelectric energy harvesters when coupled to interface circuits

This paper presents a complete optimization of a piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting system, including a piezoelectric transducer, a power conditioning circuit with full semiconductor device models, a battery and passive components. To the authors awareness, this is the first time and all of these elements have been integrated into one optimization. The optimization is done within a framework, which models the combined mechanical and electrical elements of a complete piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting system. To realize the optimization, an optimal electrical damping is achieved using a single-supply pre-biasing circuit with a buck converter to charge the battery. The model is implemented in MATLAB and verified in SPICE. The results of the full system model are used to find the mechanical and electrical system parameters required to maximize the power output. The model, therefore, yields the upper bound of the output power and the system effectiveness of complete piezoelectric energy harvesting systems and, hence, provides both a benchmark for assessing the effectiveness of existing harvesters and a framework to design the optimized harvesters. It is also shown that the increased acceleration does not always result in increased power generation as a larger damping force is required, forcing a geometry change of the harvester to avoid exceeding the piezoelectric breakdown voltage. Similarly, increasing available volume may not result in the increased power generation because of the difficulty of resonating the beam at certain frequencies whilst utilizing the entire volume. A maximum system effectiveness of 48% is shown to be achievable at 100 Hz for a 3.38-cm3 generator

Micro motion amplification – A Review

Many motion-active materials have recently emerged, with new methods of integration into actuator components and systems-on-chip. Along with established microprocessors, interconnectivity capabilities and emerging powering methods, they offer a unique opportunity for the development of interactive millimeter and micrometer scale systems with combined sensing and actuating capabilities. The amplification of nanoscale material motion to a functional range is a key requirement for motion interaction and practical applications, including medical micro-robotics, micro-vehicles and micro-motion energy harvesting. Motion amplification concepts include various types of leverage, flextensional mechanisms, unimorphs, micro-walking /micro-motor systems, and structural resonance. A review of the research state-of-art and product availability shows that the available mechanisms offer a motion gain in the range of 10. The limiting factor is the aspect ratio of the moving structure that is achievable in the microscale. Flexures offer high gains because they allow the application of input displacement in the close vicinity of an effective pivotal point. They also involve simple and monolithic fabrication methods allowing combination of multiple amplification stages. Currently, commercially available motion amplifiers can provide strokes as high as 2% of their size. The combination of high-force piezoelectric stacks or unimorph beams with compliant structure optimization methods is expected to make available a new class of high-performance motion translators for microsystems

Circuit design techniques for Power Efficient Microscale Energy Harvesting Systems

Power Management is considered one of the hot topics nowadays, as it is already known that all integrated circuits need a stable supply with low noise, a constant voltage level across time, and the ability to supply large range of loads. Normal batteries do not provide those specifications. A new concept of energy management called energy harvesting is introduced here. Energy harvesting means collecting power from ambient resources like solar power, Radio Frequency (RF) power, energy from motion...etc. The Energy is collected by means of a transducer that directly converts this energy into electrical energy that can be managed by design to supply different loads. Harvested energy management is critical because normal batteries have to be replaced with energy harvesting modules with power management, in order to make integrated circuits fully autonomous; this leads to a decrease in maintenance costs and increases the life time. This work covers the design of an energy harvesting system focusing on micro-scale solar energy harvesting with power management. The target application of this study is a Wireless Sensor Node/Network (WSN) because its applications are very wide and power management in it is a big issue, as it is very hard to replace the battery of a WSN after deployment. The contribution of this work is mainly shown on two different scopes. The first scope is to propose a new tracking technique and to verify on the system level. The second scope is to propose a new optimized architecture for switched capacitor based power converters. At last, some future recommendations are proposed for this work to be more robust and reliable so that it can be transfered to the production phase. The proposed system design is based on the sub-threshold operation. This design approach decreases the amount of power consumed in the control circuit. It can efficiently harvest the maximum power possible from the photo-voltaic cell and transfer this power to the super-capacitor side with high efficiency. It shows a better performance compared to the literature work. The proposed architecture of the charge pump is more efficient in terms of power capability and knee frequency over the basic linear charge pump topology. Comparison with recent topologies are discussed and shows the robustness of the proposed technique