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Design and Fabrication of Integrated Magnetic MEMS Energy Harvester for Low
Frequency Applications

Article  in  Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems · February 2014

DOI: 10.1109/JMEMS.2013.2267773

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JMEMS-2012-0379.R3
Design and Fabrication of Integrated Magnetic
MEMS Energy Harvester for Low Frequency
Applications
Mengdi Han+, Quan Yuan+, Xuming Sun, and Haixia Zhang, Senior Member, IEEE
 magnetostrictive [19] energy transduction mechanisms. In
Abstract—An integrated vibration-to-electrical MEMS
electromagnetic energy harvester with low resonant frequency is
designed, simulated, fabricated and tested. Special structures and
magnet arrays of the device are designed and simulated for
favorable low frequency performance. Both FEM simulations and
system-level simulations are conducted to investigate the induced
voltage of the device. Two types of harvester are fabricated with
different magnet arrays and the magnetic field of the two
harvesters is investigated. With the combination of the
microfabricated metal structures and the electroplated CoNiMnP
permanent micro magnets, the designed harvesters are of small
size (5 mm × 5 mm × 0.53 mm) without manual assembly of
conventional bulk magnets. The output power density is 0.03
μW/cm3 with optimized resistance load at 64 Hz. This magnetic
harvester is suitable for batch fabrication through MEMS process
and can be utilized to drive microelectronic devices, such as micro
implantable and portable devices.
Index Terms—Electromagnetic energy harvester, low
frequency, system-level simulation, CoNiMnP electroplating.
I. INTRODUCTION
W ith the development of CMOS (complementary metal
oxide semiconductor) technology, the power
consumption of integrated system was scaled down to a few
hundred microwatts [1]. MEMS energy harvester is a
promising substitute for battery, especially in low power
consumption applications, such as remote sensor networks and
biomedical implantable devices. There are many energy
sources in the environment, such as low frequency vibration,
solar energy and wind energy [2]. Compared to other kinds of
energy, vibration is almost available everywhere and can be
easily converted to electrical power by electromagnetic [3]-[9],
piezoelectric [10]-[14], electrostatic [15]-[18] and
Manuscript received December 17, 2012. This work was supported by Fund
of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61176103 & 91023045),
and Doctoral Program Fund (No. 20110001110103).
M. D. Han, X. M. Sun and H. X. Zhang are with the Institute of
Microelectronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. (e-mail:
zhang-alice@pku.edu.cn).
Q. Yuan was with the Institute of Microelectronics, Peking University,
Beijing 100871, China. He is now with the Institute of Semiconductor, Chinese
Academy of Science, Beijing, China.
+ These two authors contributed equally to this work.
1
particular, the electromagnetic energy harvester has many
advantages. Firstly, no smart material is needed for
electromagnetic energy harvester. Secondly, the internal
resistance of the electromagnetic harvester is much lower
compared to piezoelectric energy harvester. Finally, the power
is generated automatically with the relatively movement
between the coils and magnet field and extra operation power
are not necessary.
A reported electromagnetic energy harvester [4], fabricated
with high performance NdFeB magnets, has maximum output
power of 0.53 mW with a relatively large volume of 240 mm3.
To harvest low frequency vibrations in the environment, a
microscale harvester with frequency up-converting technique
[20] is fabricated, which generates 0.57 mV with 0.25 nW
power from a single cantilever. A micro electromagnetic
harvester [21] capable of harvesting energy in a wide frequency
band is fabricated with a central magnet and several serially
connected cantilevers, which generates a continuous power of
0.4 μW in a large input frequency band of 800 Hz. However,
the fabrication of an efficient microscale harvester has proved
difficulties. Currently, it is difficult to integrate high
performance magnets in magnetic MEMS harvesters.
Traditional fabrication requires high processing temperatures
which are not compatible with CMOS process. A great majority
of the electromagnetic harvesters are fabricated with manually
assembled bulk magnet [22]-[24], which leads to relatively
large volume and brings difficulty for system integration.
Using electroplating technology, varieties of metals and alloys
with microstructures have been fabricated. On this basis,
CoNiMnP permanent magnet arrays have been electroplated
[25], which provide a new way to integrate permanent magnets
into MEMS sensors and actuators. Applications based on the
electroplated CoNiMnP permanent magnet have also been
proposed and fabricated [26].
In this paper, a fully integrated MEMS electromagnetic
energy harvester for low frequency application is designed,
simulated, fabricated and tested. First, the output performance
is simulated based on the mass-spring model. Magnetic field
distribution is then simulated through FEM (finite element
method) simulation. Besides, the arrangement and geometric
parameters of the energy harvester are also optimized. Two
types of energy harvester with different magnetic arrays were
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3 2

designed and fabricated. Electroplated high performance working at resonant frequency, the generated electrical power
CoNiMnP permanent magnets are used to fabricate the reaches maximum.
electromagnetic harvester, which greatly decreases the volume Obviously, when the resonant frequency of the system
of the harvester and makes the fabrication compatible with IC matches the input frequency, the power is proportional to the
(integrated circuit) process. The vibration beams and the fixed mass. Therefore, larger magnet should be utilized as the mass in
coils are also fabricated by copper electroplating technology the energy harvesting device. Meanwhile, more power will be
which made the fabrication process simple and reliable. Low obtained at resonance if mechanical damping ratio is small
resonant frequency is achieved in the designed harvesters, as enough and equals to the electrical damping ratio (  m   e ).
verified by the tested results. Mechanical damping ratio can be designed by structures as low
as possible while electrical damping ratio can be optimized by
II. MODEL AND ANALYSIS circuit parameters. When the load resistance equals to the
system resistance, the maximum power will be generated
A general model for the vibration energy conversion is the
across the load [28].
standard mass-spring system [27], as shown in Fig. 1. In this
system, the mass displacement z (t ) is caused by the input
displacement y (t ) . The damping includes the mechanical
damping and the electrically induced damping. Here, the power
from the mechanical system generated by electrical induced
damping can be converted to electrical power, while the
mechanical damping always causes the energy loss of the
system.

Fig. 2. Detailed process of calculating FM

For electromagnetic energy harvester, the induced voltage is

determined according to Faraday’s law,
d dB dz
E (t )   N   NA (3)
Fig. 1. Schematic of the vibration energy harvester. dz dz dt
where N is the turns of the coil, A is the area of the coil.
With an excitation given as y(t )  Y sin t , the system can From (1), the magnetic damping force ( FM  be z (t ) ) can be
be described as [4], expressed as
mz (t )  (be  bm ) z(t )  kz(t )  m 2Y sin(t ) (1) dB E (t )
FM  be z (t )  NA (4)
where k is the spring constant, be and bm are the electrical dz RCoil  RLoad
induced damping coefficient and mechanical damping where RCoil and RLoad are the impedance of the coil and external
coefficient respectively. The generated power of the system is load, respectively.
[4],
 3 3 Based on (1), (3) and (4), Matlab/Simulink model can be
mY 2 e ( ) built to investigate the frequency response of the induced
n
p 2 2
(2) dB
     2 voltage [29] if we acquire the relationship between and z .
 2 ( )   1  ( )  dz
 n   n  Magnetostatic simulation can be carried out to obtain the
where n is the natural frequency of the system and  is the relationship between B( z ) (average magnetic flux density over
damping ratio of the system, which includes electrical and the coil area) and z (distance from the magnet surface). Here,
b b a five order polynomial function is chosen to fit the B( z ) - z
mechanical parts (  = e + m  e m ). When the system is
2mn curve using least square method,
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3 3

B( z)  Az5 +Bz4 +Cz3 +Dz 2 +Ez+F (5) with moving magnets have several benefits. First of all, using
the magnets as the moving parts can increase the total mass of
dB
The relationship between and z is acquired through the device, which will increase the output power according to
dz (2). Besides, the magnets are fabricated on the top layer after
differential of (5). the fabrication of the coils and beams, making the fabrication
easier and more stable. Two types (i.e. TYPE 1 and TYPE 2) of
energy harvester are designed with the same fabrication process
but different structures. For TYPE 1, the vibration plate is
supported by six copper beams. Constant magnetic field is
provided by a micro annulus magnet and six side magnets as
shown in Fig 4(a). For TYPE 2, four snake-shaped beams are
designed to support the vibration plate which is conducive for
low frequency performance. Meanwhile, magnet arrays with
two side magnets are utilized to provide the constant magnet
field. As shown in Fig. 4(b), seven separated cylinder magnet
arrays are used instead of a bulk one, which will improve the
magnetic field distribution in the area and decrease the surface
stress of the magnets. According to Faraday’s law, the voltage
will be generated when the magnetic flux through the copper
coils changes during the vertical movement. As shown in Fig.
4(c), when the magnet moves upward, induced current will
Fig. 3. Simulink model of the energy harvester. flow through the coils. During the downward movement,
current with the opposite direction will be generated.
The detailed process of calculating FM is explained in Fig. 2.
A. Simulation of the Magnetic Fields
Given an input excitation, the product of z (t ) and k , the
Magnetostatic simulation is first performed to investigate the
dB distribution of magnetic fields. The coercivity and retentivity of
product of and bm , as well as the magnetic damping force
dz the permanent magnet material is -751 Oe and 8887 Gs
FM , are sent back to the system as a feedback. In addition, respectively [26]. For TYPE 1, a micro annulus magnet and six
side magnets are used to provide magnetic field. Fig. 5(a)
external circuit module can be added to investigate the
shows the scale bar and side view of the magnets. Distributions
relationship between the output and external load. A general
of the magnetic field over the energy harvester with different
system-level Simulink model of this energy harvester is
distances are shown in Fig. 5(b)-(c). It can be observed that
described in Fig. 3. higher magnetic field appear at the edge of the permanent
magnets and the intensity of magnetic field sharply decreases
with the increasing distance.

Fig. 5. (a) Scale bar and side view of the magnets. Distribution of the magnetic
field over the TYPE 1 energy harvester with the distance of (b) 0 μm and (c) 20
μm.

Fig. 4. 3D structure of (a) TYPE 1 and (b) TYPE 2. (c) Working principle of the
electromagnetic energy harvester.

III. DESIGN AND SIMULATION

The electromagnetic energy harvester is designed to work
with low frequency vertical vibration input, which consists of a
fixed copper planar coil on the silicon substrate and magnet
arrays located on the vibration planar plate. Energy harvesters
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3
Fig. 6. Changing rate of the magnetic flux density along five lines. (a) Position
of the five lines. (b) Average magnetic flux density against distances for the five
lines. The inset shows the enlarged magnetic flux density distribution of line1,
line2 and line3.
The above simulation results indicate that the coils should be
placed near the edge of the magnets. In order to get higher
induced voltage, large changing rate of the magnetic field
should be obtained according to Faraday’s law. As the
vibration plate vibrates along Z direction, we investigate the
magnetic field distribution along five lines which represents the
coil (Fig. 6(a)). Varying the distance from 10 μm to 40 μm,
magnetic field distribution along five lines is obtained. Average
magnetic field against distances for the five lines are shown in
Fig. 6(b), which clearly proves that larger changing rate of the
magnetic field appears at the edge of the magnet. The inset of
Fig. 6(b) shows the enlarged magnetic field distribution of
line1, line2 and line3.
Fig. 7. Distribution of the magnetic field over the TYPE 2 energy harvester
with the distance of (a) 0 μm, (b) 20 μm.
As shown in Fig. 6, the magnetic flux density along line 5
(black line) is quite larger than that of line 1 (purple line),
which means that larger magnetic field is obtained near the
edge of the magnet. Replacing one magnet with several smaller
magnets can increase the length of the magnet edge, thus
enhancing the magnetic field. Therefore, we replace the central
annulus magnet with seven cylinder magnets for TYPE 2. Fig.
4
7(a)-(b) shows the magnetic field distributions over the energy
harvester with the distance changing from 0 to 20 μm. Average
intensity of the magnetic field is enhanced due to the use of
magnet array.
Fig. 8. Illustration of cylindrical magnet arrays.
The geometric parameters of the magnets are the major factor
which influences the magnetic properties, especially for the
cylinder magnets. In the following simulation, the central
cylindrical magnet is placed at the origin of the coordinate.
Other six cylindrical magnets with the same size are placed
around the central magnet symmetrically. The parameters of
the cylinder and the gap between the center and outer cylinders
are explained in Fig. 8.
Fig. 9. Simulated results of magnetic flux density along line from the origin of
coordinates to point A with the gap distance of (a) 100 μm, (b) 150 μm, (c) 200
μm, (d) 0 μm.
First, the influence of gap distance (D) on magnetic field
distribution of the arrays is studied. Radius and height of the
cylindrical magnet is set as 200 μm (R=200 μm) and 10 μm
(H=10 μm) respectively. The magnetic field distribution is
simulated with the gap distance (D) varied from 100 μm to 200
μm (Fig. 9(a)-(c)). To make a comparison, a whole plate
magnet (D=0) with a radius R=1000 μm (Fig. 9(d)) is simulated
as well. Simulated results of the magnetic flux density along the
line started from the origin of the coordinate to point A are
shown in Fig. 9. The results show that the magnetic field
distribution of the magnets array has better performance than
that of the whole plate bulk magnet. Also, it can be found that
the magnetic flux density distribution along the line is greatly
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3 5

influenced by different gap distance, because maximum performance. First, FEM simulation is performed using the
magnetic flux density along the line appears at the edge of the Transient solution type in Maxwell 2D to study the relationship
cylinder magnets. Moreover, average magnetic flux density between induced voltage and the parameter of the structure.
along the line decreases from 0.0037 T to 0.0027 T with the D The height of the cylinder magnet (H), the gap between the
increasing from 100 μm to 200 μm. magnet and coil (D), the line width (Wcoil) and spacing of the
The radius of the cylinder magnets are also optimized for coils (Dcoil) are optimized (Fig. 12).
better magnetic performance. When the D is fixed as 100 μm,
the radius (R) is designed from 200 μm to 350 μm with the
height (H) of 10 μm. The simulated results are plotted in Fig. 10,
which shows that the peak values of the curves are in the edge
of the cylinder magnets for all the four different radius. When
the radius is 200 μm, the average magnetic flux density along
the line is 0.0037 T, which is larger than the value of other
radius.

Fig. 12. Parameters to be optimized through FEM simulation.

For TYPE 1, the relationship between H and induced voltage

is shown in Fig. 13(a), from which we can see that the induced
voltage increase significantly with the increase of H. Therefore,
increasing the height of the cylinder magnet in the fabrication
process is an effective way to improve the output performance
of the device. Then, the influence of D is studied (Fig. 13(b)).
Higher induced voltage is achieved when the gap is smaller,
which means the gap should be as small as possible. Wcoil and
Dcoil also influence the induced voltage (Fig. 13(c)(d)). The
induced voltage remained almost the same as Dcoil changes
from 10 μm to 60 μm, while the increase of Wcoil leads to lower
induced voltage.
Fig. 10. Simulated results of magnetic flux density along line from the origin of
coordinates to point A with the radius of (a) 200 μm, (b) 250 μm, (c) 300 μm, (d)
350 μm.

The magnetization is dependent on the mass of the magnets

which is decided by the height H and the radius R. Therefore,
the magnetic property of the cylinder magnets with different
height is also studied. Here, D and R is set as 100 μm and 200
μm respectively, with H varying from 5 μm to 25 μm. The
simulated magnetic flux density along line from the origin to
point A is shown in Fig. 11, which implies that larger magnetic
field is obtained in higher cylinder magnets.

Fig. 13. Relationship between (a) H, (b) D, (c) Dcoil (d) Wcoil and the induced
voltage of TYPE 1.

For TYPE 2, the induced voltage is also influenced by H, D,

Fig. 11. Simulated results of magnetic flux density along line from the origin of
coordinates to point A with different height.
B. Simulation of the Induced Voltage
Simulations are also conducted to study its output
Dcoil and Wcoil. As shown in Fig. 14, the induced voltage shows
a similar changing trend with TYPE 1. With the optimized
magnet array, higher output voltage of TYPE 2 is obtained,
which proves the effectiveness of the magnet array.
Considering the limitation of the fabrication process, values of
the parameters are set as shown in Table I.
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3 6

different frequencies is shown in Fig. 15(c)(d), respectively.

For TYPE 1, the peak voltage reaches 4.9 μV at the frequency
of 104 Hz. With the specially designed beam and magnet array,
the peak voltage of TYPE 2 improves to 8.3 μV and its resonant
frequency is reduced to 65 Hz as well.

Fig. 14. Relationship between (a) H, (b) D, (c) Dcoil (d) Wcoil and the induced
voltage of TYPE 2.

TABLE I
OPTIMIZED PARAMETERS OF THE ENERGY HARVESTER

Parameters TYPE 1 TYPE 2

Fig. 15. B( z ) - z curve of (a) TYPE 1 and (b) TYPE 2. Simulated output
Height of the magnet 10 μm 10 μm voltage of (c) TYPE 1 and (d) TYPE 2 under different frequencies.
Inside radius of the magnet 150 μm /
Outside radius of the magnet 650 μm /
Radius of the magnet array / 300 μm
Distance between the magnet array / 100 μm IV. FABRICATION PROCESS
Distance between magnet and coil 10 μm 10 μm
Line width of the coil 80 μm 80 μm
In this work, the high performance permanent magnet arrays
Space of the coil 80 μm 80 μm are fabricated with electroplating process instead of manual
Number of the coil 3 3 assembly, which greatly reduces the size of the device and
increases the production efficiency. The microfabrication of
CoNiMnP permanent magnets with electroplating technology
C. System-level Simulation
is optimized for MEMS application in our previous work [26].
Using the Simulink model shown in Fig. 3, we investigate the TABLE III
dB COMPOSITION OF CONIMNP ELECTROLYTE
induced voltage under different frequencies. First, as a
dz Composition Concentration Composition Concentration
function of z should be obtained through FEM simulation.
B( z ) (average magnetic flux density over the coil area) with CoCl2·6H2O 24 g/L NaH2PO2 4.4 g/L
NiCl2·6H2O 24 g/L NaCl 24 g/L
different z (distance from the magnet surface) is simulated MnSO4·H2O 3.4 g/L C12H25O4NaS 0.3 g/L
and a five order polynomial function (5) is chosen to fit the H3BO3 25 g/L C7H5NO3S 0.9 g/L
B( z ) - z curve. Fitting coefficients in (5) for TYPE 1 and The fabrication of CoNiMnP permanent magnet is carried
TYPE 2 are listed in Table II and the corresponding curves are out in electrolyte with a current density of 8 mA/cm2 at room
plotted in Fig. 15(a)(b). temperature. The primary constituents of the electrolyte
TABLE II solution are cobalt chloride, nickel chloride, and manganese
COEFFICIENTS FOR TYPE 1 AND TYPE 2 sulphate. Boric acid is added to maintain the concentration of
Coefficients TYPE1 TYPE 2
the divalent cobalt cations in the electrolyte, as the divalent
cobalt cations are easily oxidized. Detailed composition of the
A 2.3271×1022 -3.9510×1022 electrolyte is listed in Table III. During the process of
B 7.1772×1017 1.1861×1018 electroplating, cobalt plate is used as the anode to maintain the
C -8.6533×1012 -1.3682×1013
ion concentration. Besides, an air agitator is applied to ensure
D 5.4441×107 7.8942×107
E -228.3205 -273.0873 uniform ion transportation, thus improving the surface
F 0.0013 0.0010 morphology of the electroplated magnets. Two magnets with
magnetic flux density of 5000 G are placed parallel to the
dB silicon wafer to provide a perpendicular magnetic field. The
The - z curve is acquired through differential of (5). magnetic properties of the CoNiMnP permanent magnets can
dz
be improved by the external magnetic field. SEM photos and
Frequency domain simulation is carried using the Simulink
surface morphology of the electroplated magnet arrays are
model and the output voltage of TYPE 1 and TYPE 2 under
shown in Fig. 16.
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3 7

Fig. 16. SEM photos of the electroplated magnet array with (a) circle, (b)
square, and (c) rectangle shape. (d) Surface morphology of the electroplated
magnet array.

Fig. 17. Fabrication process of magnetic harvester

The fabrication process of the energy harvester (TYPE 1 and
TYPE 2) is carried out with electroplating of copper and
CoNiMnP, as shown in Fig. 17. Firstly, 300 nm silicon oxide is
used as the insulation layer on the silicon wafer (Fig. 17(a)).
Secondly, 50 nm titanium and 300 nm copper are sputtered as
seed layer and thick photoresist (AZ4620) is patterned as the
mold of the coils. Copper coils are then electroplated with a
thickness of 10 μm (Fig. 17(b)). Thirdly, 300 nm copper seed
layer is sputtered on the photoresist and photoresist is patterned
on the seed layer. Afterwards, 10μm copper springs and
vibration plate are electroplated as the movable parts (Fig.
17(c)). Fourthly, 10 μm CoNiMnP permanent magnet is
directly electroplated onto the copper planar plate with defined
pattern (Fig. 17(d)). Finally, the photoresist and seed layere are
removed (Fig. 17(e)).
SEM photos of the electromagnetic harvesters are shown in
Fig. 18. The annulus magnet for TYPE 1 (Fig. 18(a)) and
cylinder magnet arrays for TYPE 2 (Fig. 18(b)) are placed on
the vibration planar. The gap between the plate and the coils is
10 μm, which is fabricated by removal of the sacrificial layer.
In addition, copper coils and side magnets are placed around
the vibration plate. It has to be mentioned that the snake-shaped
Fig. 18. SEM photos of the magnetic harvester: (a) TYPE 1, (b) TYPE 2.
beams in TYPE 2 is buckled due to the inner stress of the Photograph of the designed harvesters: (c) TYPE 1, (d) TYPE 2.
electroplated copper.

V. MEASUREMENT AND DISCUSSIONS

The designed harvesters are tested with a vibrator. As shown
in Fig. 19(a), the frequency source in Dynamic Signal Analyzer
is connected to a power amplifier to drive the vibrator. The
frequency source is a sinusoidal voltage signal with tunable
frequency. Frequency of the vibration shaker is decided by the
JMEMS-2012-0379.R3
source signal frequency and the oscillation amplitude is
controlled by the amplifier. The acceleration of the shaker is
measured with a standard accelerometer on the shaker. Both the
acceleration and the induced voltage can be recorded in the
Dynamic Signal Analyzer. The photographs of the fabricated
harvesters (TYPE 1 and TYPE 2) are shown in Fig. 19(b)(c).
Fig. 19. Schematic diagram of the testing system.
The performance comparison of the two harvesters is shown
in Fig. 20. For TYPE 1, the observed peak output voltage is 3.8
μV at 102 Hz with an acceleration of 2 g and there are three
peaks below 400 Hz. Compared with TYPE 1 harvester,
stronger output is achieved at relatively low frequency for
TYPE 2, due to the magnet array and snake-shaped beams. The
testing output peaks of TYPE 2 are at the frequencies of 64 Hz,
201 Hz and 292 Hz, respectively. The maximum output voltage
is about 7.5 μV at the frequency of 64 Hz with a reduced
acceleration of 1 g. The measured main peak agrees well with
the simulation results. However, there are still deviations
between the expected performance and measured results which
is caused by the following points. First, parameters used in the
simulation may have small deviations with the actual value. In
particular, the electroplated copper beams are not completely
symmetrical. Other peaks in the measurement may be caused
by this asymmetry. Besides, the fitted B(z)-z curve cannot
reflect the real magnet field distribution.
Fig. 20. Output voltage of (a) TYPE 1, and (b) TYPE 2 under different
frequencies.
For TYPE 2, the output power is also tested with resistance
load connected to the harvester. The maximum output power of
TYPE 2 is 0.36 nW with a low-value (1.9 Ω) external load.
Considering the power density, the designed harvester has
better performance due to the small volume of the integrated
8
magnetic film. In detail, the thickness of the electroplated
copper coil, vibration plate and CoNiMnP magnet array are all
10 μm. Considering a 500 μm silicon substrate, the thickness of
the device is only 0.53 mm. With the volume of 5 mm ×5 mm ×
0.53 mm, the power density reaches 0.03 μW/cm3 for TYPE 2.
Moreover, the thickness can be further reduced by fabricating
on a parylene layer. The parylenen layer is 10 μm or even
thinner and can be easily peeled off from the silicon substrate.
With the improved fabrication process, the total thickness can
be reduced to 40 μm and the power density increased to 0.36
μW/cm3. With the development of CMOS low power
consumption technology, harvesters with this power density are
acceptable for the microelectronic devices. Furthermore, 3D
MEMS coils (i.e., planar MEMS coils with two or more levels)
can be easily integrated into the device since the device is
totally compatible with MEMS technology. With the increased
turns in 3D coils, the output performance can be further
improved. In addition, the frequency up-conversion technique
can be utilzed in the harvester for a better performance [20].
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this work, electromagnetic MEMS energy harvesters for
low frequency applications are designed, simulated, fabricated
and tested. The novel elelctrodeposition process for CoNiMnP
magnet film is totally compatible with MEMS batch process,
which greatly reduces the volume of the device. The magnetic
field distribution, induced voltage and frequency domain
simulations are conducted to optimize the structure of the
designed harvesters. Testing results shows that by utilizing the
magnet array, induced voltage can be improved to 7.5 μV at the
frequency of 64 Hz. The tested maximum output power density
is 0.03 μW/cm3 with optimized resistance load as low as 1.9 Ω.
Compared with other electromagnetic harvesters, the integrated
magnet array makes it easier for integration. Moreover, low
resonant frequency (below 100 Hz) makes it closer to the
practical application. For example, the device can be placed on
the vehicle or bridge to effectively harvest the vibration energy.
Additionally, improvement method is also discussed for better
output performance. With the improved output, this
fully-integrated electromagnetic harvester can be used as a
power supply for wireless sensor network in the IOT (Internet
of things).
VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Dongming Fang in the
Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for the
valuable discussions, and the staff of the National Key
Laboratory of Science and Technology on Micro/Nano
Fabrication, Peking University, for their help on the
fabrications, cooperation and assistance.
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