Multilayer piezoelectric energy scavenger for large current generation

Abstract

Piezoelectric energy harvesting system is promising to the energy source of wireless sensor nodes for ubiquitous sensor networks. The piezoelectric material has been usually considered as a high voltage and low current source. When charging current into the thin film battery or supercapacitor, a larger current is needed to shorten the charging time. In order to increase the current in the piezoelectric energy harvesting, multilayer ceramics were fabricated. N-layer multilayer ceramics decreased the voltage but increased the current N times. The impedance of the multilayer ceramics are matched to 1 k Omega which is similar to the impedance of general electrical devices. The multilayer piezoelectric generator could be directly employed for electrical device without the additional electrical circuit to improve efficiency.