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Figures of Merits of Piezoelectric Materials in Energy Harvesters
Figures of Merits of Piezoelectric Materials in Energy Harvesters
Figures of Merits of Piezoelectric Materials in Energy Harvesters
HARVESTERS
Abstract: Piezoelectric material selection is crucial in the design of piezoelectric micro energy harvesters.
Different figures of merit (FOMs) have been sought to compare and to form a preference of piezoelectric
materials depending on the applications. FOMs may include the operational bandwidth and the cost in addition to
the energy conversion efficiency at MEMS-scale. This paper reviews only FOMs that are related to energy
conversion efficiency. The FOMs for MEMS harvesters should be much different from the FOMs for bulk
piezoelectric material harvesters. After analyzing composite beam based MEMS energy harvesters, accurate
evaluation on the holistic efficiency is obtained. Also a new FOM is proposed to represent the energy conversion
capacity of the piezoelectric materials, which existing FOMs do not take into account.
978-0-9743611-9-2/PMEMS2012/$20©2012TRF 464 PowerMEMS 2012, Atlanta, GA, USA, December 2-5, 2012
direction 3 and accompanying strain in direction 3. 2
( d i g ) i
1 F
The superscript E and D denote under constant ue = (9)
2 A
electric field (short circuit) and under constant electric
displacement (open circuit) respectively. If connecting where F is the force, A is the area and ue is the area of
an electric load, the induced electrical energy will do W1 in Fig.1:
work to the load and the cycle completes. From the 1
energy point of view, W1 + W2 is the total input 2
( )
ue = s E − s D i T 2 (10)
mechanical energy density, W1 is the work done on From Eq. 9 and Eq.10, it is obvious that the
the electrical load. Coupling factor is the ratio of the electrical energy density in the piezoelectric materials
effective stored electrical energy W1 to the total input is proportional to FOM2. FOM2 is a straightforward
mechanical energy W1 + W2. measure to compare the electric energy generated by
various piezoelectric materials at the same mechanical
stress applied. It should be noted that when the same
amount of mechanical energy is injected instead of the
same stress, even if the FOM2 of a material is higher,
the generated electrical energy might be smaller if the
transduction rate of the material is low.
To characterize thin piezoelectric element based To see how the elastic layer changes FOM5, we
energy harvesting device, we have considered the may still use the double layer cantilever beam with
strain energy distribution in the composite beam, and varying the elastic layer. Fig. 3 illustrates the variance
generated a new FOM: of FOM5 with increasing thickness of elastic layer for
six commonly used piezoelectric materials. The
FOM5 =total stored electrical energy / total input material properties used for simulation are listed in
mechanical energy Table 1.
=total stored electrical energy / (mechanical
energy input to elastic layer + mechanical energy
input to piezoelectric layer) (14)
where W is the width of the beam. The stress is PVDF -3.30e-11 2.00e+09 12 3.00%
linearly distributed with respect to neutral axis: AlN 3.40e-12 4.20e+11 10.4 0.15%
yE BaTiO3 1.49e-10 6.70e+10 1700
σ= i (17) /
ρ PZT 3.60e-10 6.30e+10 1700 0.20%
where y is the vertical coordinate with respect to PZN-PT 2.00e-09 9.26e+09 5200 1%
neutral axis, ρ is the radius of curvature of the beam.
PMN-PT 2.82e-09 8.36e+09 8200 0.12%
The moment generated by the force at the tip and the
radius of curvature has the relationship,
EI FOM6: Incorporating Energy Capacity
M= = Fx (18) Besides transduction rate, energy capacity of
ρ piezoelectric materials can significantly determine the
where EI is the product of effective Young’s modulus performance of the piezoelectric energy harvesters.
and moment of inertia of the beam, x is the Since the maximum stored electrical energy of a
longitudinal location along the beam, and F is the piezoelectric element not only depends on the
concentrated force at the free end of the cantilever conversion efficiency but also the maximum amount
beam. Substituting Eq.17 and Eq.18 to Eq.16, and of mechanical energy the element can absorb, more
perform the integration, the strain energy in the i-th specifically, it is the product of the maximum input
layer can then be evaluated as, mechanical energy and the energy conversion rate.
h+ ∑ hi When an external energy source input energy to a
WL3 Ei F 2 y 3
ui = (19) piezoelectric element, if assuming the element goes
6 ( EI ) 3 h+∑ hi−1
2
through the ideal cycle, the input energy will be
The total strain energy in the beam is the sum of the transferred into the strain energy of the piezoelectric
strain energy in all layers: element. The maximum strain energy that a
piezoelectric element can capture is limited by its
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maximum strain and Young’s modulus. The yield FOM5. FOM3 involves simpler computation, which
strain should be the upper limit of the deformation to makes it a convenient measure of composite beam
keep the element from significant fatigue and based energy harvesters. However, if a more accurate
degradation. Assuming any strain level can be reached evaluation is needed, FOM5 should be considered.
in the piezoelectric element, and then the maximum FOM6 provides a new perspective to designers. Not
mechanical energy in a piezoelectric element is, only the energy conversion rate, but also the energy
εy εy 1 conversion capacity is revealed by this new FOM.
u y = ∫ σ ( ε ) d ε = ∫ E yε d ε = E yε y2 (22) Besides, the simplicity of calculation is preserved,
0 0 2
where uy is the maximum strain energy density, σ is which makes FOM6 a desirable tool for future
material comparison.
the stress, ε y is the yield strain, Ey is the Young’s
This paper reviewed several FOMs for MEMS
modulus. With the maximum strain energy density, energy harvesters that are related to energy conversion
we can define a new FOM – the maximum stored efficiency. Characterization of piezoelectric thin film
electrical energy density of the piezoelectric material based energy harvesters can be successful by selecting
after transduction, which is the product of maximum proper FOM during the design stage and choosing the
strain energy and the conversion rate: right active material.
d 2 E y2ε y2 e2ε y2
FOM 6 = k 2 i u y = = (23) Acknowledgement Authors are grateful to MIT-
2ε e 2ε e
INL (International Iberian Nanotechnology
where d and e are the piezoelectric coefficients, and εe
Laboratory) Program for the support of this study.
is the dielectric permittivity.
Table 2. Summary of five main FOMs discussed in
REFERENCES
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