It is shown that the energy harvesting capabilities of a piezoelectric cantilever can be enhanced through coupling to a static magnetic field. A permanent magnet is fixed to the end of a piezoelectric cantilever, causing it to experience a non-linear force as it moves with respect to a stationary magnet. The magnetically coupled cantilever responds to vibration over a much broader frequency ran...

We have developed a soft-material elastic modulus and shear modulus sensor using piezoelectric cantilevers. A piezoelectric cantilever is consisted of a highly piezoelectric layer, e.g., lead– zirconate–titanate bonded to a nonpiezoelectric layer, e.g., stainless steel. Applying an electric field in the thickness direction causes a piezoelectric cantilever to bend, generating an axial displacem...

one of the bio-sensing mechanisms is mechanical. rather than measuring shift in resonance frequency, we adopt to measure the change in spring constant due to adsorption, as one of the fundamental sensing mechanism. this study explains  determination of spring constant of a surface functionalized micro machined micro cantilever, which resonates in a trapezoidal cavity-on silicon wafer, with the ...

A novel model is described for predicting the static behavior of a piezoelectric cantilever actuator with an arbitrary configuration of elastic and piezoelectric layers. The model is compared to deflection measurements obtained from 500m-long ZnO cantilever actuators fabricated by surface micromachining. Modeled and experimental results demonstrate the utility of the model for optimizing device...

A design optimization based on genetic algorithms for increasing power output performance of MEMS piezoelectric cantilevered energy harvesters has been performed. By employing genetic algorithms, the piezoelectric energy scavenging system with optimized shape and lateral geometries of a unimorph cantilever beam and a proof mass is simulated to achieve a power response improvement of ~1.8× in co...

Articles you may be interested in Piezoelectric energy harvester converting strain energy into kinetic energy for extremely low frequency operation Appl. Energy harvesting from ambient low-frequency magnetic field using magneto-mechano-electric composite cantilever Appl. Frequency up-converted wide bandwidth piezoelectric energy harvester using mechanical impact Nonlinear output properties of c...

This work proposes a novel self-sensing tapping-mode atomic force microscopy operation utilizing charge measurement. A microcantilever coated with a single piezoelectric layer is simultaneously used for actuation and deflection sensing. The cantilever can be batch fabricated with existing micro electro mechanical system processes. The setup enables the omission of the optical beam deflection te...

We report on the first successful operation of a cyclic contact scanning force microscope ~SFM! using a self-excited cantilever in liquid. Based on a new structure including a PZT reference pattern and a free-standing PZT cantilever, the piezoelectric self-excitation and self-detection mechanism for a PZT microcantilever was developed successfully. The topography is recorded by measuring the pi...

The concept of “energy harvesting” is to design smart systems to capture the ambient energy and to convert it to usable electrical power for supplying small electronics devices and sensors. The goal is to develop autonomous and self-powered devices that do not need any replacement of traditional electrochemical batteries. Now piezoelectric cantilever structures are being used to harvest vibrati...

AbstractWith the application of wireless sensor networks become widespread, supply energy for these wireless sensors proves to be a significant issue. Moreover, for the ambient vibration lies everywhere, the vibration can supply energy for the wireless sensor via energy harvester. The piezoelectric energy harvester becomes the research focus for the simple structure and higher energy conversion...