A design method of in-plane MEMS electret energy harvester with comb drives

Abstract

In this report, a design method is proposed for in-plane MEMS electrostatic energy harvesters with comb drives. Dependent on the device layer thickness and the achievable aspect ratio of the DRIE process, either the overlapping-area-change or the gap-closing converter has higher output power than the other. Two prototypes of MEMS electret energy harvesters are developed to verify the present design method.