TRIBOELECTRIC DEVICES FOR POWER GENERATION AND SELF-POWERED SENSING APPLICATIONS

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

MULTI-FREQUENCY MEMS-BASED ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY HARVESTER

Abstract: A novel MEMS energy harvester (EH) has been proposed and fabricated in order to harvest energy from three dimensional (3-D) vibrations and multiple frequencies. It comprises of circular ring shaped springs, circular proof mass coated with two-layered aluminum coils, and a permanent magnet. The device exhibits the first resonant mode of 1285 Hz in the out-of-plane direction. The second and third modes are along the plane of device at frequencies of 1470 and 1550 Hz, respectively. The optimum power of these three modes is measured to be 0.016, 0.0087 and 0.0045 µW, respectively

Development of a broadband triboelectric energy harvester with SU-8 micropillars

10.1109/JMEMS.2014.2317718Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems24191-9

Design of a MEMS Capacitive Comb-drive Micro-accelerometer with Sag Optimization

The current paper presents an optimization study for the designing of a highly sensitive inertial grade capacitive accelerometer based on comb-drive actuation and sensing. The proof mass, suspension system (beams or tethers), stators and rotors have to be realized through an HAR (high aspect ratio) DRIE (deep reactive ion etching) process for which process optimization has already been done at our laboratory. As the proof mass is a bulk micro-machined structure having a mass in milligram range, the optimum positioning of the tethers on the proof mass is important to have minimum sag, necessary to reduce the off-axis sensitivity. The optimization for the positioning of the tethers has been carried out using a commercial software tool ANSYSTM Multiphysics. The accelerometer has been modeled analytically to predict its characteristics. The dependency of sensitivity on the dimensions of the suspension beams (tethers) has also been verified using the above FEM software tool. The present device has been designed to deliver a high sensitivity of 13.6 mV/g/V for low-g applications

Design of a MEMS Capacitive Comb-drive Micro-accelerometer with Sag Optimization

The current paper presents an optimization study for the designing of a highly sensitive inertial grade capacitive accelerometer based on comb-drive actuation and sensing. The proof mass, suspension system (beams or tethers), stators and rotors have to be realized through an HAR (high aspect ratio) DRIE (deep reactive ion etching) process for which process optimization has already been done at our laboratory. As the proof mass is a bulk micro-machined structure having a mass in milligram range, the optimum positioning of the tethers on the proof mass is important to have minimum sag, necessary to reduce the off-axis sensitivity. The optimization for the positioning of the tethers has been carried out using a commercial software tool ANSYSTM Multiphysics. The accelerometer has been modeled analytically to predict its characteristics. The dependency of sensitivity on the dimensions of the suspension beams (tethers) has also been verified using the above FEM software tool. The present device has been designed to deliver a high sensitivity of 13.6 mV/g/V for low-g applications

Ultra-broadband electromagnetic MEMS vibration energy harvesting

10.1088/1742-6596/476/1/012049Journal of Physics: Conference Series4761

A wideband triboelectric energy harvester

10.1088/1742-6596/476/1/012128Journal of Physics: Conference Series4761

A new energy harvester design for high power output at low frequencies

10.1016/j.sna.2013.06.009Sensors and Actuators, A: Physical199344-352SAAP