SCIENCE CHINA
Technological Sciences
© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 tech.scichina.com www.springerlink.com
*Corresponding author (email: hxzhang@pku.edu.cn)
Progress of Projects Supported by NSFC
November 2013 Vol.56 No.11: 2636–2641
doi: 10.1007/s11431-013-5373-4
Investigation and characterization of an arc-shaped piezoelectric
generator
HAN MengDi
1
, LIU Wen
1,2
, ZHANG XiaoSheng
1
, MENG Bo
1
& ZHANG HaiXia
1*
1
Institute of Microelectronics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;
2
Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen 518055, China
Received August 17, 2013; accepted September 16, 2013; published online September 30, 2013
A novel arc-shaped piezoelectric generator based on flexible PVDF thin film is presented and systemically studied. With a pe-
riodical external force, the generator can produce peak voltage of 45.6 V and peak power of 30.7 μW. The maximum power
density reaches 38.4 μW/cm
3
with a 4 cm × 2 cm × 100 μm device, at the optimum load resistance of 33.33 MOhm. The influ-
ence of frequency, size dimension and load resistance are investigated through experimental measurements. With this high
output arc-shaped generator, capacitors can be effectively charged and three commercial LEDs have been directly lighted
without any energy storage unit.
piezoelectric generator, arc-shaped, PVDF, high output, self-powered system
Citation: Han M D, Liu W, Zhang X S, et al. Investigation and characterization of an arc-shaped piezoelectric generator. Sci China Tech Sci, 2013, 56: 2636
2641, doi: 10.1007/s11431-013-5373-4
1 Introduction
To solve the energy crises, harvesting energy from the en-
vironment to set up a self-powered system [1] is an attrac-
tive method, which has drawn a lot of attention in recent
years. To harvest light from the environment, solar cells
have been fabricated and investigated for many years [2].
Meanwhile, devices converting heat into electricity have
also been studied by lots of groups [3, 4]. Other kinds of
energy such as bio-chemical energy [5], electromagnetic
waves [6], etc. have also been converted into electricity
using various mechanisms. Compared with those kinds of
energy, mechanical energy exists widely in the environment
and daily life [7]. Moreover, it is more stable and can be
easily harvested by electromagnetic [8–10], electrostatic
(triboelectric) [11–13], piezoelectric [14–16] and hybrid [17]
method. Among them, piezoelectric generators have rela-
tively high output voltage which simplifies the rectifying
circuit. Besides, structure of this kind devices is simple,
because gap and permanent magnets can be avoided.
However, traditional piezoelectric generators are usually
based on the cantilever structure [18]. This on the one hand
weakens the strain generated in the piezoelectric materials.
On the other hand, the cantilever structure is not flexible,
which can only work effectively at high frequencies [19].
To solve these problems, flexible piezoelectric nanogenera-
tors based on ZnO nanowires have been fabricated and in-
vestigated [20]. The nanogenerators are flexible and can be
placed onto human skin to produce electricity [21]. The
flexibility broadens the application of these devices, but
high output can only be obtained under large external forces
[22].
Therefore, in this work, we present an arc-shaped piezo-
electric generator. Thanks to the arc-shaped structure, d
31
mode of PVDF is effectively utilized to convert mechanical
energy into electricity. In this device, large output is ob-
tained with moderate external force, which is promising to