Organic microcantilevers based on reduced graphene oxide composite for electrostrictive energy harvesting

Abstract

Electrostrictive materials are promising for mechanical energy harvesting applications because of their high power density, low cost and scalability. In this paper, strain sensitive nanocomposite materials based on reduced graphene (rGO) and PDMS are used for energy harvesting; they are characterized by a high electrostrictive coefficient (2.4x10-15 m2/V2) and a giant dielectric constant (ranging from 100 to 1000 at 100 Hz, depending of rGO concentration). Using these nanocomposite materials, electrostrictive MEMS microgenerators are fabricated with an innovative low-cost and environment friendly process in an all-organic approach. The fabricated microcantilevers exhibit excellent mechanoelectrical performances in dynamic mode. With an acceleration of 1 g of the microcantilever base using a shaker, experiment at the first resonant mode (≈ 16 Hz) generates an electrical power density of 8.15 μW/cm3.