A vibration energy harvester using AlN piezoelectric cantilever array

Xingqiang Zhao, Zhengguo Shang, Guoxi Luo, Licheng Deng

PII: S0167-9317(15)30023-X
DOI: doi: 10.1016/j.mee.2015.07.006
Reference: MEE 9970

To appear in:

Received date: 17 April 2015

Revised date: 3 July 2015
Accepted date: 25 July 2015

Please cite this article as: Xingqiang Zhao, Zhengguo Shang, Guoxi Luo, Licheng Deng,
A vibration energy harvester using AlN piezoelectric cantilever array, (2015), doi:
10.1016/j.mee.2015.07.006

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A vibration energy harvester using AlN piezoelectric cantilever

array

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Xingqiang Zhao a,b,c,, Zhengguo Shang c, Guoxi Luo c, Licheng Deng c

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a
C-MEIC, School of Information and Control, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China,
210044

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b
CICAEET, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China, 210044
c
Key Laboratory of Fundamental Science on Micro/Nano-Device and System Technology, Chongqing University,
Chongqing 400030, China

Abstract
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A micro piezoelectric cantilever array device for vibration energy harvesting was designed, microfabricated and
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characterized. This device consists of five piezoelectric cantilever beams and a single proof mass. Aluminum/ aluminum
nitride/ molybdenum (Al/ AlN/ Mo) multilayer films were deposited and patterned on a silicon wafer using the magnetron
sputtering method and corresponding etching methods. Then the piezoelectric cantilever array and proof mass were
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patterned and released using deep-reactive ion etching. The open circuit voltages and output power of the five
piezoelectric cantilevers were measured at different acceleration (0.2 to 1.0 g). The array were connected in series and
parallel and the maximum generated powers are 0.935 and 3.315 μW under 1.0 g, respectively. Then a full wave rectifier
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was used to convert the alternative current into direct current. The output powers of the array in series and parallel
connection reduce to 0.342 and 0.276 μW under 1.0 g, respectively. The power loss in the rectifier for parallel case is 5
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times that for series case, which demonstrates that series connection for array harvester can effectively decrease the
power loss in the rectifier.
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Keywords: Piezoelectric; Vibration energy harvesting; MEMS devices; Array

 Corresponding author: School of Information and Control, Nanjing University of Information and Science,
No.219, Ningliu Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210044, China. E-mail address: zxq8562@163.com(X. Zhao).
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1.Introduction
Recently, a great number of researchers have been focusing on the ambient energy harvesting for powering
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) nodes. As a green environmental energy source, vibration energy is
ubiquitous such as human body [1], vehicle [2], microwave oven [3], etc. The vibration energy can be

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converted into electrical power by using the principle of piezoelectric, electromagnetic and electrostatic effects

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[1-6]. Amongst these techniques, the piezoelectric harvesters have drawn much attention due to the high
conversion efficiency and simple structure.

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Typically, a piezoelectric harvester consists of a piezoelectric cantilever beam (unimorph or bimorph)

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with or without a proof mass [7, 8]. The mechanical vibration-induced strain is converted into alternating
current (AC) electricity power through the direct piezoelectric effect. There several piezoelectric materials
used for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) harvester, such as lead zirconate titanate (PZT), aluminum

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nitride (AlN). Most researches are focusing on the PZT thin films [9, 10], but the high anneal temperature and
high polarization voltage treatment make the preparation of PZT incompatible to MEMS and CMOS process
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[11]. By contrast, AlN is lead-free and has good temperature performance and can be prepared easily by
magnetron sputtering method. AlN is still widely used in MEMS sensor [12], actuator [13] and harvester [7]
due to its MEMS process compatibility.
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The harvesting management circuit, including rectification, regulation and so on, is essential for powering
the WSNs nodes. However, the output voltages of the MEMS harvesters are usually not more than 1 V because
of their small size [8, 14, 15] and low-level vibration [16,17]. Sometimes the output voltages of the harvesters
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are even not more than the threshold voltages (typically 0.2-0.3 V) of a rectification diode. So the power loss in
the rectification diode can easily become significant especially for low voltage signal. Several methods was
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employed for the low voltage rectification, such as synchronous rectification using MOSFETs [18],
synchronous switch harvesting on inductor [19] and charge pump technique [20]. However, increasing the
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output voltage is still beneficial for management circuit. Jeon et al [21] and Kim et al [22] have demonstrated
that the output voltage of d33 mode is dozens of times more than that of d31 mode. But the design and
fabrication of the d33 mode harvester are much complex. Xu et al [23] have fabricated a PZT/PZT thick film
bimorph harvester. The two layers are connected in series to increase the output voltage, and the relative power
loss in the necessary rectifying circuit is reduced.
Previous work has presented an AlN-based MEMS piezoelectric cantilever array connected in parallel for
vibration energy harvesting[24]. The purpose of this paper is to increase the output voltage and decrease the
loss in management circuit by connecting the piezoelectric cantilever array in series. The paper is organized as
follows. Section 2 describes theoretical model. Then, the design and fabrication are presented in Section 3.
Section 4 discusses the results. Finally, section 5 gives a briefly conclusion.

2. Analysis Model
A vibration harvester consisting of a piezoelectric cantilever beam and a proof mass can be simplified into a
spring-mass-damping system. Previous work has developed an analytical distributed parameter to design the
piezoelectric vibration energy harvester [25]. The coupled equations of the piezoelectric device are
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M  C  K  v  Ba (1)

  C p v  v/Rl  0 (2)

Where η is the deflection of the first mode, the equivalent terms are shown in reference [25], including the
mass (M), stiffness (K), coupling coefficient (Θ), and excitation constant (B). C is mechanical damping

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coefficient, CP is the capacitance between piezoelectric layer electrodes, Rl is the load, v is the load voltage.
When the harvester is driven by a sinusoidal excitation acceleration a = a0eiωt, the output voltage and power can

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be expressed as:

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 jBa0
v(t )  eit
    j 2n   jC p +1 Rl   j
(3)

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2 2 2
n

P  v(t ) / Rl
2
(4)

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Where, a0 is the excitation vibration acceleration amplitude. ωn and ω are the resonance and excitation
frequency, respectively. The resonance frequency ωn is a key paremeter for the vibration harvester.Because
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when the resonance happens, the power can reach the maximum value. ζ is damping ratio.

The piezoelectric cantilever element can be considered as an AC voltage source Vi in series with a
capacitor Ci.[9] Assuming the array consists of n piezoelectric cantilever beams. For the serial and parallel
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connections, the open circuit voltage Va and capacitor Ca of the array have the following relationship.
For the serial connection:
Va  nVi , Ca  Ci n (5)
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For the parallel connection:

Va  Vi , Ca  nCi (6)
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3.Design and fabrication

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3.1.Design
Fig. 1 shows the schematic of the the MEMS harvester consisting of 5 AlN piezoelectric cantilevers
(numberized from 1 to 5) and an integrated Si proof mass. The 5 piezoelectric elements should be electrically
disconnected from each other. Because the cantilever array are combined with one mass, the cantilevers can
vibrate in phase. The dimensions of one cantilever are 8.5 mm × 2.4 mm× 51 μm (50 μm Si layer and 1 μm
AlN film, other film layers are ignored). The gap between two cantilevers is 30 μm. The integrated mass
dimensions are 2.5 mm × 12.12 mm × 0.500 mm.
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Fig. 1. The schematic of the MEMS vibration energy harvester with AlN cantilever array.

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3.2.Fabrication
The vibration energy harvester is fabricated using MEMS technology. The process flow is shown in Fig. 2. The

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fabrication starts from a double-sided-polished, n-type 4-inch (100) silicon wafer which is 500.0 ± 10.0 μm
thick. Before deposited multilayer structures, the wafer is cleaned in RCA1 and RCA2 at 80℃ for 10 minutes.
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Then silicon oxygen isolation layer (300 nm thick SiO2) is deposited at 1050 ℃ (Fig. 2 (a)). The next step is
series of deposition and patterning: 300 nm thick molybdenum (Mo) film as bottom electrode, 1.0 μm thick
piezoelectric material AlN layer and 400 nm thick Al film as top electrode (Fig. 2 (b), (c) and (d) ). The AlN
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layer was deposited by pulsed-DC magnetron sputtering and the details has been presented in reference [26].
Next step is etching a 50 μm depth trench from the frontside to define the cantilevers by deep-reactive ion
etching (Fig. 2 (e)). The last step is backside etching to form the proof mass and release the structures (Fig. 2
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(f) ). Fig. 3 shows the images of the MEMS piezoelectric harvester. The harvester is bonded on a printed circuit
board (PCB, 16 mm × 19 mm × 2 mm) by epoxy adhesive. The bonding pads on the die were wire-bonded to
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the pads on the PCB with gold wires for electrical output. In order to calculate the voltage and power of the
harvester, the piezoelectric constant d31 of AlN film was measured used Yie’s method [27]. The results shown
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d31 = -0.92 pC/N, about half of theoretical value of the AlN crystal.
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Fig. 2. The process flow of AlN piezoelectric energy harvester

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(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Fig. 3. The front (a) and back (b) view of the harvester and wire bonding (c) and the cantilever (d)

4.Experiments and results

4.1.Output Voltage of one piezoelectric cantilever

The vibration harvester was tested on an electromechanical shaker. The voltage is measured by an oscilloscope.
The open circuit voltage amplitude Voc versus the vibration frequency of the 5 piezoelectric cantilevers were
measured. Fig. 4 shows the results of the 5 cantilevers under 0.2 g. It is found that the resonace frequency is
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230.8 Hz. The maximum Voc of the piezoelectric cantilevers No. 1 to 5 are respectively 252, 297, 329, 331 and
334 mV. The main reason for the difference in voltage of the 5 piezoelectric cantilevers is that the physical
properties of AlN layer are unevenly distributed. The theoretical results are calculated, and agree well with the
experimental results as show in Fig.4. The theoretical resonace frequency and maximum Voc are 230.9 Hz and
308mV, respectively.

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Fig. 5 shows results of one piezoelectric cantilever (No. 3) under different excitation acceleration

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amplitudes. With increasing the acceleration, the harvester resonance frequency slightly shifts to low

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frequency (from 230.8 Hz at 0.2 g to 230.4 Hz at 1.0 g). The reason for this is that the nonlinear effect of
piezoelectric material under large stress will decrease the stiffness of the piezoelectric cantilever [14]. Under

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excitation acceleration of 1.0g, the maximum voltage amplitude is 0.994V. However when a germanium or
Schottky bridge rectifier is used to convert AC to DC(direct current), there will be at least 40% of voltage lost

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across the rectifying diode. MA
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Fig. 4. The open circuit voltage amplitude vs. the frequency under 0.2 g (cantilevers No. 1 to 5)
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Fig. 5. The open circuit voltage amplitude vs. the frequency under different acceleration amplitude (cantilever
No. 3)
Fig. 6 shows the load voltage and output power of one piezoelectric cantilever (No. 3) versus the
resistance load R at corresponding resonance frequencies. The maximum output powers with optimized load
350 kΩ are 0.053, 0.326 and 0.653 μW at 0.2 g, 0.6 g and 1.0 g, respectively, while the theoretical results
indicate 0.067, 0.356 and 0.706 μW.
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(a) (b)

Fig. 6. The load voltage (a) and power (b) vs. resistance R (cantilever No. 3)

4.2.Array in series and parallel connection

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The 5 piezoelectric cantilevers were connected in series and parallel. Fig. 7 shows the open circuit voltage
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amplitude Voc versus frequency. The results of the piezoelectric cantilever No. 3 are plotted again for
comparison. The voltages of the array in parallel connection and the piezoelectric cantilever No. 3 are almost
the same as each other, and the voltage - frequency curves are nearly overlapped. While for the array in series
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connection, the voltage is about 1.6 times that of the single cantilever, instead of 5 times as predicted. The
reason will be discussed later. At acceleration amplitude of 1.0 g, the maximum output voltage of the array in
series and parallel connection are 1.578 V and 0.983 V, respectively.
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Fig. 7. The open circuit voltage vs. frequency at 1.0 g for one piezoelectric cantilever No. 3, array in series and
parallel connections.
The capacitance of the piezoelectric element electrodes was measured. For parallel cases, the array
capacitance (9.69 nF) is about 5 times that of one piezoelectric cantilever ( No. 3, 1.96 nF). While for series
cases, the array capacitance (1.23 nF) is just 1/1.6 times that of the piezoelectric cantilever No. 3, not be 1/5
times. It was found that the piezoelectric elements were not completely electrically disconnected and there was
parasitic capacitance between the bottom electrodes. Taking the cantilevers No. 3 and 4 (1.91 nF) for example,
the parasitic capacitance between the bottom electrodes of the two cantilevers is 2.04 nF. So for series case, the
top and bottom electrodes of the 5 piezoelectric cantilevers are cross connected. That is why the open circuit
voltage of the array in series connection is not as predicted. According the process flow shown in Fig.2, there
two reasons, the sputter-deposited Al element in the film does not completely form AlN and the Mo is not
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etched clearly. The further fabrication process will improve the isolation of the bottom electrodes. However
the harvester voltage for the series case has already been increased by 60%.
Fig. 8 shows the load voltage, current and power of the array versus the resistor load R at 1.0 g and
230.4Hz. The maximum power Pmax, optimized load resistance Ropt, current IR and voltage drop VR across the
optimized load are listed in Table 1. The output power and current for parallel case are much larger than the

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series connection results. Even so, a new problem will arise for the parallel connection when rectified: large

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current will lead to large power loss in the rectifying diodes.

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Table 1. The results of the piezoelectric cantilever No. 3, array in series and parallel connection at optimized load

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Ropt VR IR Pmax
(kΩ) (V) (μA) (μW)
No.3 350 0.676 1.931 0.653

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Series 540 0.987 1.828 0.902
Parallel 70 0.674 9.635 3.249
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Fig. 8. The load voltage and current (a), power (b) vs. load resistor R at 1.0 g for one piezoelectric cantilever
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No. 3, array in series and parallel connections.

4.3.Rectification
A full wave rectifier was used to convert the AC to DC at 1.0 g and 230.4 Hz. After rectification, the output
voltage amplitude Voc of the array in series and parallel connections reduce from 1524.5 and 988.5 mV to
1028.1 and 565.7 mV, respectively. The voltage drop rate for the series case (33%) is much less than that for
the parallel case (43%). Theoretically, the voltage drop rate can be reduced to 10% for the series case.

Fig. 9. The output power vs. load R at 1.0 g and 230.4 Hz before and after rectified.
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Fig. 9 shows the output power of the array versus the resistor load R at 1.0 g and 230.4Hz before and after
rectified. After rectification, the maximum power of the array in series and parallel connections reduce from
0.935 and 3.315 μW to 0.342 and 0.276 μW, respectively. The power loss for the parallel case is about 5 times
that for the series case. The reason is that the voltage drop across the rectifier are similar (0.4 ~ 0.5 V) for the
two cases, while the current for the parallel case is 5.3 times that for the series case as shown in table 1. It

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demonstrates that series connection for the array harvester can effectively decrease the power loss in the

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rectifier in contrast to parallel connection. Further more the predicted power loss in rectification will reduce to

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18% for the 5 AlN cantilevers. Theoretically, increasing the number n of piezoelectric beam can increase the

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voltage and reduce the power loss by n times, but this method will increase the matched load and bond pad and
reduce the current. So the piezoelectric beam number should be appropriate.

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5.Conclusion
This paper has presented the design, fabrication and characterization of a MEMS piezoelectric cantilever array
based on AlN thin film with a single Si proof mass for vibration energy harvesting. A prototype with 5 AlN
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cantilevers was fabricated by series of standard MEMS processes. The five piezoelectric elements were
connected in series and parallel and the results were compared. The power consumption in rectifier for parallel
case is much larger than that for series case. Series connection for array harvester can effectively increase the
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output voltage and decrease the power loss in the rectifier.

Acknowledgements
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This work was the supported by The Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of NUIST (No. S8113108001).
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Graphical Abstract

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Highlights
 A piezoelectric vibration energy harvester using AlN cantilever array is presented.
 The AlN cantilever beam array is fabricated using MEMS technology.
 The output power of the harvester is increased by connecting the array in series.
 For series connection, the power loss in rectification circuit is reduced largely.

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