MEMS vibration electret energy harvester with combined electrodes

Author

Qianyan Fu ; Suzuki, Yuya

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Univ. of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

fYear

2014

fDate

26-30 Jan. 2014

Firstpage

409

Lastpage

412

Abstract

A novel in-plane MEMS electret energy harvester with combined electrodes of overlapping-area-change and gap-closing converters is proposed for large output power both at low and high vibration accelerations. An early prototype has been successfully micro-fabricated with the single layer silicon-on-insulator process. Soft X-ray charging is employed to establish uniform surface potential around 60 V on vertical electrets on the sidewall of the comb fingers. Up to 1.6 μW output power has been obtained, which corresponds to the effectiveness as high as 57%.

Keywords

electrets; electrochemical electrodes; energy harvesting; microfabrication; micromechanical devices; silicon-on-insulator; surface potential; MEMS electret energy harvester; MEMS vibration electret; electrodes; gap-closing converters; microfabrication; overlapping-area-change; silicon-on-insulator; single layer; soft X-ray charging; surface potential; vibration accelerations; Acceleration; Electrets; Electric potential; Electrodes; Electrostatics; Micromechanical devices; Power generation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2014 IEEE 27th International Conference on

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2014.6765663

Filename

6765663