MEMS Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesters

Abstract

Rapid advances in microelectronic devices (such as embedded sensors, medical implants, wireless communication nodes, and so on) have stimulated the development in ambient energy harvesting over the last decade. In this chapter, the fundamental theory and the typical microfabrication of MEMS piezoelectric vibration energy harvester were introduced. Firstly, the application background of the vibration energy harvester was analyzed. Then the working principle of the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester was introduced. After that, the theoretical model was deduced through Hamilton’s principle and Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. The optimization of the piezoelectric vibration energy harvester was performed, and the optimization results show that the electromechanical conversion efficiency is not more than 50% and the PVEH with low damping ratio does not always have high power output, which challenges previous literature suggestion that lower damping ratio tends to higher power output. Finally, the typical microfabrication of MEMS based piezoelectric energy harvesters was described and the challenges of the MEMS PVEH were illustrated.