Stochastic thermodynamics of a piezoelectric energy harvester model

Abstract

We experimentally study a piezoelectric energy harvester driven by broadband random vibrations. We show that a linear model, consisting of an underdamped Langevin equation for the dynamics of the tip mass, electromechanically coupled with a capacitor and a load resistor, can accurately describe the experimental data. In particular, the theoretical model allows us to define fluctuating currents and to study the stochastic thermodynamics of the system, with focus on the distribution of the extracted work over different time intervals. Our analytical and numerical analysis of the linear model is succesfully compared to the experiments.