Piezoelectric MEMS for energy harvesting
Name
MRS bulletin Energy Harvesting.pdf
Size
803.69 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
71956a14302eb65fc5d82f4ca85bc2b9
Author(s)
Kim, Sang-Gook
Priya, Shashank
Kanno, Isaku
Date Issued
November 2012
Journal
MRS Bulletin
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (Materials Research Society)
Citation
Kim, Sang-Gook, Shashank Priya, and Isaku Kanno. “Piezoelectric MEMS for Energy Harvesting.” MRS Bulletin 37.11 (2012): 1039–1050. Web.© Materials Research Society 2012.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have been proven to be an attractive technology for harvesting small magnitudes of energy from ambient vibrations. This technology promises to eliminate the need for replacing chemical batteries or complex wiring in microsensors/microsystems, moving us closer toward battery-less autonomous sensors systems and networks. To achieve this goal, a fully assembled energy harvester the size of a US quarter dollar coin (diameter = 24.26 mm, thickness = 1.75 mm) should be able to robustly generate about 100 μW of continuous power from ambient vibrations. In addition, the cost of the device should be sufficiently low for mass scale deployment. At the present time, most of the devices reported in the literature do not meet these requirements. This article reviews the current state of the art with respect to the key challenges such as high power density and wide bandwidth of operation. This article also describes improvements in piezoelectric materials and resonator structure design, which are believed to be the solutions to these challenges. Epitaxial growth and grain texturing of piezoelectric materials is being developed to achieve much higher energy conversion efficiency. For embedded medical systems, lead-free piezoelectric thin films are being developed, and MEMS processes for these new classes of materials are being investigated. Nonlinear resonating beams for wide bandwidth resonance are also being developed to enable more robust operation of energy harvesters.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2012.275
