A Simplified Process of PMN-PZT Energy Harvester Based on Flammable Materials

Abstract

With the increasing demand of auxiliary power unit in portable electronic devices, the concept of renewable energy harvesting near human surrounding environmental circumstance arouses an interest. As the field of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) has advanced, a clear need for the integration of materials other than silicon and its compounds into micromachined transducers has emerged. Piezoelectric materials are high energy density materials that scale very favorably upon miniaturization and that has led to an ever-growing interest in piezoelectric films for MEMS applications. However, conventional powder processing and machining cannot meet the requirement of such fine ceramic structure. Advanced technologies such as those using lasers and soft PDMS modeling method have been available for micro-patterning of ceramics but are not viable for large-scale production. It is difficult and time-consuming to pattern fine scale ceramics. In this paper, we fabricated simple process of MEMS based energy harvester by employing the flammable materials with PMN-PZT micro-pillar structure. The optimum aspect ratio of thickness/length for the ceramic pillar dielectric properties and micro-structure will be discussed.