A hair-cell structure based piezoelectric energy harvester operating under three dimensional arbitrary vibrations

Abstract

A hair-cell structure based piezoelectric energy harvester was newly developed to effectively scavenge three-dimensional vibrations. The cantilever of the proposed energy harvester, called a hair-cell structure, is deliberately elongated and curled so that it oscillates with decent displacement under not only vertically induced vibrations, but also under longitudinally and horizontally induced vibrations. The proposed energy harvester is comprised of an elongated and curled piezoelectric cantilever and a proof mass with high aspect ratio at the free end of the cantilever. The fabricated device generated the peak output voltage of 15 mV under vertically induced vibrations with an acceleration of 50 m/s2 at its resonance frequency of 116 Hz. Furthermore, it also generated the peak output voltage of 33 mV and 10 mV under longitudinally and horizontally induced vibrations, respectively. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.