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Electronics
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Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications
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Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Microelectronics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 October 2024) | Viewed by 6147

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Federico Moro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università di Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
Interests: computational electromagnetics; multiphysics modeling; multiscale modeling; MEMS; energy storage; energy harvesting
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has accelerated strong interests in developing small-scale batteryless power supplies for remote sensors and embedded devices. Micro energy harvesters, which are able to convert small amounts of ambient energy into electricity and enable miniaturization, have become key devices to address these challenges.

This Special Issue aims at addressing new trends in the modelling, design, and applications of the latest energy harvesting technologies, including those based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and energy conversion principles, such as piezoelectric, electromagnetic, electrostatic, magnetostrictive, photovoltaic, thermoelectric, and triboelectric effects. Original papers on micro energy harvesters based on non-linear, multi-resonant or hybrid approaches aimed at improving energy conversion efficiency and power production are also welcome.

Prof. Dr. Federico Moro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • energy harvesters
  • energy conversion
  • MEMS
  • wideband harvesters
  • non-linear harvesters

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 3114 KiB  
Article
Electrical Characterization of a Unimorph Vibration Energy Harvester with Al/AlN/Al Structure Realized by Magnetron Sputtering
by Daniele Desideri and Federico Moro
Electronics 2024, 13(16), 3135; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13163135 - 7 Aug 2024
Viewed by 1039
Abstract
In this work, the realization of a unimorph vibration energy harvester with an Al/AlN/Al structure by magnetron sputtering is proposed. Starting from an Al substrate, the device with an Al/AlN/Al structure was obtained by using a magnetron sputtering in two different operative conditions. [...] Read more.
In this work, the realization of a unimorph vibration energy harvester with an Al/AlN/Al structure by magnetron sputtering is proposed. Starting from an Al substrate, the device with an Al/AlN/Al structure was obtained by using a magnetron sputtering in two different operative conditions. The realized energy harvester was investigated in the unimorph bender set-up. The electrical characterization was performed by estimation of the AlN d31 piezoelectric coefficient and measurements of the output power. The estimated absolute value of d31 was 0.48 pC/N and the maximum output power was about 17 μW with 9.81 m/s2 (rms value) excitation acceleration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications)
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10 pages, 2710 KiB  
Article
High-Efficiency 5G-Band Rectifier with Impedance Dispersion Compensation Network
by Yiyang Kong, Xue Bai, Leijun Xu and Jianfeng Chen
Electronics 2024, 13(16), 3105; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13163105 - 6 Aug 2024
Viewed by 864
Abstract
This paper proposes a microwave rectifier designed for the popular 5G band, featuring impedance dispersion compensation and a cross-type impedance matching network. The rectifier has an ultra-high power conversion efficiency. The compensation network employs two parallel transmission lines to counteract the nonlinear shift [...] Read more.
This paper proposes a microwave rectifier designed for the popular 5G band, featuring impedance dispersion compensation and a cross-type impedance matching network. The rectifier has an ultra-high power conversion efficiency. The compensation network employs two parallel transmission lines to counteract the nonlinear shift of the diode input impedance caused by frequency variation. Additionally, the cross-over impedance matching network enhances matching and minimizes losses. After rigorous theoretical analysis and simulation, the rectifier is fabricated. Experimental results show significant conversion efficiency in the 5G band (across 4–6.5 GHz). At an input power of 12 dBm, the rectifier achieves more than 60% efficiency between 4.8 and 6.4 GHz and more than 70% between 5.2 and 6.2 GHz, with a peak efficiency of 78.1%. Moreover, the rectifier maintains more than 50% efficiency over a wide input power range of 5 to 14 dBm. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications)
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19 pages, 7014 KiB  
Article
Piezoelectric MEMS Energy Harvester for Low-Power Applications
by George Muscalu, Bogdan Firtat, Adrian Anghelescu, Carmen Moldovan, Silviu Dinulescu, Costin Brasoveanu, Magdalena Ekwinska, Dariusz Szmigiel, Michal Zaborowski, Jerzy Zajac, Ion Stan and Adrian Tulbure
Electronics 2024, 13(11), 2087; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13112087 - 27 May 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1061
Abstract
With the global market value of sensors on the rise, this paper focuses on the fabrication and testing of a proof-of-concept piezoelectric energy harvester which is able to harvest mechanical energy from the ambient environment and convert it into electrical energy in order [...] Read more.
With the global market value of sensors on the rise, this paper focuses on the fabrication and testing of a proof-of-concept piezoelectric energy harvester which is able to harvest mechanical energy from the ambient environment and convert it into electrical energy in order to power wireless sensor networks. We focused on obtaining a new device structure based on a comb-type array of piezoelectric MEMS cantilevers (2 × 10) for a resonant frequency in the environmental application domain (a few hundred Hz) and a chip area of only 1 cm2. The configuration of the lead-free piezoelectric cantilever consists of a Si substrate, a pair of Ti-Pt electrodes and a sputtered piezoelectric layer of 12% Sc-doped AlN with a thickness of 1000 nm, a dielectric constant of ~13 and e31,f = 1.3 C/m2. At a resonant frequency of 465.2 Hz and an acceleration of 1 g, the maximum value for the collected power was 2.53 µW for an optimal load resistance of 1 MΩ resulting in a power density of 60.2 nW/mm3 for the unpacked device, without taking into account the vibration volume. By increasing the excitation acceleration to 2 g RMS and using LTC3588-1 for the power circuitry we were able to obtain a stabilized output voltage of 1.8 V. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications)
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15 pages, 5727 KiB  
Article
A Low-Voltage Self-Starting Boost Converter Using MPPT with Pulse Multiplication for Energy Harvesting
by Ning Wang, Xiaofei Zhang, Shuxi Xu, Yuan Liu, Lei Zhang, Zhonghui Zhao, Zhiyang Hu and Hengsheng Shan
Electronics 2024, 13(9), 1713; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics13091713 - 29 Apr 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1153
Abstract
A single-inductor, low-voltage, three-step self-starting boost converter is proposed for photovoltaic (PV) energy harvesting. In order to enhance energy transfer efficiency, a variable-step Perturb and Observe (P&O) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) scheme has been devised based on a novel pulse multiplication technique. [...] Read more.
A single-inductor, low-voltage, three-step self-starting boost converter is proposed for photovoltaic (PV) energy harvesting. In order to enhance energy transfer efficiency, a variable-step Perturb and Observe (P&O) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) scheme has been devised based on a novel pulse multiplication technique. Upon overcoming the speed and accuracy limitations, the maximum power point (MPP) of the PV model is accurately tracked. In the boost converter, the average inductor current is utilized to implement closed-loop control of the MPPT loop, enhancing the stability of the tracking process and enabling efficient energy transmission. Finally, the boost converter is implemented using a 0.18 μm CMOS process, which is capable of self-starting and maintaining stable operations at input voltages ranging from 90 mV to 300 mV, achieving a peak efficiency of 93%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications)
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19 pages, 2069 KiB  
Article
Towards System-Level Simulation of a Miniature Electromagnetic Energy Harvester Model
by Chengdong Yuan, Arwed Schütz, Dennis Hohlfeld and Tamara Bechtold
Electronics 2023, 12(15), 3252; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12153252 - 28 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1368
Abstract
Energy harvesting, a solution to provide a lifetime power supply to wireless sensor nodes, has attracted widespread attention in the last two decades. An energy harvester collects ambient energy, e.g., solar, thermal, or vibration energy, and transforms it into electrical energy. In this [...] Read more.
Energy harvesting, a solution to provide a lifetime power supply to wireless sensor nodes, has attracted widespread attention in the last two decades. An energy harvester collects ambient energy, e.g., solar, thermal, or vibration energy, and transforms it into electrical energy. In this work, we work on an electromagnetic energy harvester model, which is composed of four magnets oscillating along a coil. Such a device converts the vibrational energy into electrical energy. We reproduce the electromagnetic energy harvester model in finite element-based software. In order to include this model in a system-level simulation, the methodology of extracting a look-up table-based equivalent circuit model is presented. Such an equivalent circuit model enables the interaction of the electromagnetic energy harvester model with both electrical and mechanical compact models at the system-level. Furthermore, the matrix interpolation-based and algebraic parameterization-based parametric model order reduction methods are suggested for speeding up the generation of the equivalent circuit model and the design optimization process with respect to magnet dimensions. The efficiencies of these two methods are investigated and compared. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Micro Energy Harvesters: Modelling, Design, and Applications)
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