A complete study of electroactive polymers for energy scavenging: modelling and experiments

Recent progresses in ultra low power microelectronics propelled the development of several microsensors and particularly the self powered microsystems (SPMS). One of their limitations is their size and their autonomy due to short lifetime of the batteries available on the market. To ensure their ecological energetic autonomy, a promising alternative is to scavenge the ambient energy such as the mechanical one. Nowadays, few microgenerators operate at low frequency. They are often rigid structures that can perturb the application or the environment; none of them are perfectly flexible. Thus, our objective is to create a flexible, non-intrusive scavenger using electroactive polymers. The goal of this work is to design a generator which can provide typically 100 ?W to supply a low consumption system. We report in this paper an analytical model which predicts the energy produced by a simple electroactive membrane, and some promising experimental results.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Magnetoresistive study of antiferromagnetic--weak ferromagnetic transition in single-crystal La2_{2}CuO4+δ_{4+\delta}

The resistive measurements were made to study the magnetic field-induced antiferromagnetic (AF) - weak ferromagnetic (WF) transition in La$_2$CuO$_4$ single-crystal. The magnetic field (DC or pulsed) was applied normally to the CuO$_2$ layers. The transition manifested itself in a drastic decrease of the resistance in critical fields of ~5-7 T. The study is the first to display the effect of the AF -WF transition on the conductivity of the La$_2$CuO$_4$ single-crystal in the parallel - to - CuO$_2$ layers direction. The results provide support for the 3-dimensional nature of the hopping conduction of this layered oxide.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, RevTe

Doping Dependence of the Electronic Structure of Ba_{1-x}K_{x}BiO_{3} Studied by X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy

We have performed x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) studies of single crystal Ba_{1-x}K_{x}BiO_{3} (BKBO) covering the whole composition range $0 \leq x \leq 0.60$. Several features in the oxygen 1\textit{s} core XAS spectra show systematic changes with $x$. Spectral weight around the absorption threshold increases with hole doping and shows a finite jump between $x=0.30$ and 0.40, which signals the metal-insulator transition. We have compared the obtained results with band-structure calculations. Comparison with the XAS results of BaPb_{1-x}Bi_{x}O_{3} has revealed quite different doping dependences between BKBO and BPBO. We have also observed systematic core-level shifts in the XPS spectra as well as in the XAS threshold as functions of $x$, which can be attributed to a chemical potential shift accompanying the hole doping. The observed chemical potential shift is found to be slower than that predicted by the rigid band model based on the band-structure calculations.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures include

Modelling of dielectric polymers for energy scavenging applications

International audienceAn increasing number of scavenging applications use dielectric polymers: for instance, on the heel of a shoe, behind the knee, on a navy buoy, etc. This emerging technology has the potential to be an alternative to traditional, well-known solutions using piezoelectricity or electromagnetism. Indeed, dielectric polymers are suitable for creating flexible and innovative structures working in a quasi-static range. Nevertheless, current analytical models of dielectric polymers in generator mode are too simple and not sufficiently predictive. This paper reports a more reliable method for modelling dielectric generators. This method is a tool for designing any plane structure. It can be used to calculate performance or to optimize a given structure. Moreover, it is modular and can be adapted to any kind of dielectric material and any plane structure. The method is illustrated on a biaxial plane generator comprising 3M's VHB 4910 polymer and conductive silver grease electrodes. Experiment data are provided to validate the analytical model and thus the whole method

Dielectric Polymer: A Complete Study In Generator Mode

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Dielectric polymer: scavenging energy from human motion

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Dielectric properties of polyacrylate thick films used in sensors and actuators

International audienceDielectric polymers are emerging electro-active materials used in high performance applications such as micropumps, robots and artificial muscles. The development of such applications requires the use of models taking into account the electrical parameters of the material. However, there is still some controversy over the dielectric constant of the most widely used dielectric polymer (VHB 4910, 3M, USA). In this paper, we present an exhaustive study relating to changes in the dielectric constant of VHB 4910 over wide frequency and temperature ranges. We found that the permittivity was a function of: frequency, temperature, the nature of the electrodes and the pre-stress applied to material. Mechanisms of dielectric polarization (β-relaxation) explain the behaviour in temperature and frequency of this parameter. The use of silver grease-compliant electrodes induces an increase in the dielectric constant which moves to a value of 5.4 (against 4.7 with gold electrodes). A pre-strain applied to the material shows a reduction up to 15% in the value of the dielectric constant. Short-range dipolar relaxation, local mechanical constraints in the material and a possible crystallization of material induced by the stretching are suggested to explain these behaviours. Analytic equations of the dielectric constant according to the temperature and pre-strain are then proposed and used to validate the behaviour of these materials for actuator and scavenger devices