Low electrostatic dumping force energy harvester using bipolar charged electret

Abstract

In this paper, a bipolar charging method for electrostatic vibratory energy harvester and its analysis result of electrostatic force are described. To improve the harvesting power, higher voltage charged electret with large capacitance change structures are extensively studied. However, the higher voltage also shows a higher electrostatic force, which prevents the device movement for harvesting and causes pull-in behavior. From the result of FEM analysis on bipolar charged electret, the electrostatic force for vertical and horizontal directions were reduced by 15% and 10% from negative only charged device, respectively. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.