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Project Description

Materials

Microtransducer fabrication

BESTMEMS proposes an innovative approach for fabricating efficient micro-transducers based on aerosol deposition.

Aerosol deposition equipment and process

 

Process optimization

Aerosol deposition method has been improved by a fine tuning of:

  • Raw PZT powder
  • Inlet flow rate vs. deposition rate
  • Annealing process
  • Poling process

This allowed to move from power of 120 µW before the project to more than 350µW after (more than doubled)

 

Shape optimization

Enabling better strain distribution and thus available power was possible through the detailed investigation of the transducer shape. This allowed to move from energy density of 17.07 mW.cm-3.g-2 in rectangular shape to 24.7 mW.cm-3.g-2 in optimized triangular one (45% increase).

Triangular transducers

 

Process as part of a global system

Such progress were also done with in mind realistic application with considerations about the structural and electrical interfacing (for example capacitance > 4nF, voltage level >1.5V peak). Elaborated transducers therefore show power output up to 300 µW at 0.5g of acceleration (700µW @1g) and peak-to-peak open circuit voltage of more than 30V at 0.5 g, along with a good fatigue resistance for accelerations up to 1.5g.

Transducer response

 

Reference

  1. C.T. Chen, S. C. Lin, T. K. Lin, and W.J. Wu, “High-performance energy harvester fabricated with aerosol deposited PMN-PT material”, PowerMEMS 2016 conference, Paris, 2016.