Optimal geometry of a parallelized electret-based vibration energy harvester

Electret-based vibration energy harvesters often contain electrets forming a pattern of periodically repeated strips with period L to increase the output power by parallelization. Given a gap length g between the stationary electrets and the movable electrodes facing them, the natural question is ho...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Smart materials and structures 2012-06, Vol.21 (6), p.65001-1-10
Main Authors: Okamoto, H, Hamate, Y, Xu, L, Kuwano, H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electrets
Exact sciences and technology
General equipment and techniques
Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy
Physics
Transducers
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Summary:Electret-based vibration energy harvesters often contain electrets forming a pattern of periodically repeated strips with period L to increase the output power by parallelization. Given a gap length g between the stationary electrets and the movable electrodes facing them, the natural question is how to choose L to maximize the output power. Our analysis, based on conformal mapping, shows that the optimal ratio L g is represented by a rapidly convergent series starting with the dominant term π = 3.14, followed by terms amounting to a correction of less than 0.3%. We establish the practical relevance of this finding through an experiment involving a voltage-biased energy harvester.
ISSN:0964-1726
1361-665X
DOI:10.1088/0964-1726/21/6/065001