Piezoelectric Harvesters and MEMS Technology: Fabrication, Modeling and Measurements

Author

Renaud, M. ; Sterken, T. ; Schmitz, A. ; Fiorini, P. ; Van Hoof, C. ; Puers, R.

Author_Institution

InterUniv. Microelectron. Center, Leuven

fYear

2007

fDate

10-14 June 2007

Firstpage

891

Lastpage

894

Abstract

Piezoelectric converters designed for harvesting energy from mechanical vibrations have been fabricated by micromachining technologies. The manufactured piezoelectric energy harvesters have been characterized by applying a sinusoidal oscillation as mechanical input and by using a simple resistive load to measure the output power of the system. A maximum output power of 40 muW has been measured for an input vibration having a frequency of 1.8 kHz and an amplitude of 180 nm. A model aimed at estimating the output power of the fabricated piezoelectric structures has been developed and theoretical estimations have been compared with experimental results.

Keywords

convertors; electric generators; micromachining; micromechanical devices; piezoelectric devices; vibrations; MEMS technology; fabricated piezoelectric structure; frequency 1.8 kHz; mechanical vibration; micromachining; output power estimation; piezoelectric converter; piezoelectric energy harvester; power 40 muW; resistive load; sinusoidal oscillation; Energy measurement; Fabrication; Manufacturing; Mechanical variables measurement; Micromachining; Micromechanical devices; Power generation; Power measurement; Power system modeling; Vibration measurement; energy harvester; micromachining; piezoelectricity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, 2007. TRANSDUCERS 2007. International

Conference_Location

Lyon

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0842-3

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0842-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SENSOR.2007.4300274

Filename

4300274