Energy Harvesters
Photo of a completed wafer with 44 energy harvesters. 
It is desirable to harvest energy from the surrounding environment to power small autonomous distributed sensor systems. Thereby batteries and wires can be eliminated and monitoring can take place at less accessible places. We are working on a device that harvest energy from vibrations. The energy harvester is based on the piezoelectric transducer principle where PZT (lead, zirconium, titanium ceramic) thin film is used as the active layer. The harvester unit is fabricated with state of the art silicon micro machining combined with PZT screen printing technologies.
The complete system consists of a harvester unit, an energy management module and an energy transformation and storage module that, together will power a sensor and wireless communication module. The power requirement is expected to be in the range of 6-300 W and at frequencies in the range of 100-700 Hz.
Partners: The project is carried out together with Vestas Wind Systems A/S where the complete system will be tested and Meggitt A/S, who masters the screen printing technology of PZT thin film. Further, all micro-fabrication is carried out in the national cleanroom facility DTU Danchip. The Project is funded by The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation.