Energy and Materials Technology Available for Licensing

This invention provides a wide-band resonating thin film PZT MEMS energy harvester that harvests energy from parasitic ambient vibration with a wide range of amplitude and frequency via piezoelectric effect. The new design utilizes the tensile stretching strain in doubly-anchored beams that exploits the nonlinearity of the stretching beam to enable a wide-band resonance and thereby a robust power generation amid the uncertainty of the input vibration spectrum. The device can be manufactured by a combination of surface and bulk micromachining processes.

Wide-Bandwidth MEMS-Scale Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

Keywords:
MEMS, PZT, Energy harvesting

Applications:
Energy harvester

Problem:

Narrow band-width and poor robustness of traditional PZT energy harvester

Low harvested power density of traditional PZT energy harvester

Advantages:

Wide bandwidth and high power piezoelectric density energy harvesting

Inventors:

Professor Sang-Gook Kim(Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT)

Arman Hajati (Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT)

Intellectual Property:
U.S. Provisional Patent filed on December 2, 2009

Publications:
N/A

Wide-Bandwidth MEMS-Scale Piezoelectric Energy Harvester

Keywords: MEMS, PZT, Energy harvesting

Applications: Energy harvester

Problem: Narrow band-width and poor robustness of traditional PZT energy harvester Low harvested power density of traditional PZT energy harvester

Advantages: Wide bandwidth and high power piezoelectric density energy harvesting

Inventors: Professor Sang-Gook Kim(Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT) Arman Hajati (Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT)

Intellectual Property: U.S. Provisional Patent filed on December 2, 2009

Publications: N/A