A thin film lead zirconate titanate Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT), power generating device is developed. It is designed to resonate at specific vibrational frequencies from an ambient, vibrational energy source, thereby creating electrical energy via the piezoelectric effect. The energy harvesting device uses the piezoelectric d33 mode and is fabricated with three mask steps. Our cantilever device was desi...

Piezoelectric materials can realize the mutual conversion of electrical energy and mechanical energy, are widely used in electronic devices such as piezoelectric filters, micro-displacers, actuators, sensors, which have crucial uses fields information communication, biomedicine, military defense, etc [...]

The image quality and resolution of the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) operating in tapping mode is dependent on the quality (Q) factor of the sensing micro-cantilever. Increasing the cantilever Q factor improves image resolution and reduces the risk of sample and cantilever damage. Active piezoelectric shunt control is introduced in this work as a new technique for modifying the Q factor of a p...

Inline with the advancement of low power circuit design, it has reduced the power requirements of electronic devices to the level of microwatts. As power demand decreases, the possibility of using energy harvesting systems as an alternative to batteries increases. However, for low power electronic application, the consistency of minimum voltage and current supply to the electronic devices is an...

We describe a precision micropump for generation of precisely metered micro-aliquots of liquid at high rates. The use of custom designed piezoelectric valves positioned externally to the microfluidic chip allows for on-demand formation of micro-droplets with online control of their individual volumes from nLs to μLs at frequencies up to 400 Hz. The system offers precision of administering volum...

Design, fabrication and tests of a monolithic compliant-flexure-based microgripper were performed. The geometry design and the material tresses were considered through the finite element analysis. The simulation model was used to study in detail profiles of von Mises stresses nd deformation. The maximum stress in the microgripper is much smaller than the critical stress values for fatigue. The ...

In this paper, the trends from the last 10 years of inertial micro-generator literature are investigated and it is shown that, although current generator designs are still operating well below their maximum power, there has been significant improvement with time. Whilst no clear conclusions could be drawn from reported fabricated devices with respect to preferred transducer technology, this pap...

This research established the design guidelines for center embossed diaphragms for micro-diaphragm fiber type sensors. Following the guidelines, a center embossed diaphragm fiber optic sensor (CE-DFOS) based on Fabry–Perot interference was designed and fabricated with micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology. The CE-DFOS was experimentally verified to have the designed intrinsic freque...

Electric potential produced in deformed piezoelectric nanostructures is of significance for both fundamental study and practical applications. To reveal the piezoelectric property of ZnO nanohelices, the piezoelectric potential in single-crystal nanohelices was simulated by finite element method calculations. For a nanohelix with a length of 1200 nm, a mean coil radius of 150 nm, five active co...

Influenced by the need for composites with stronger magneto-electric coupling, we present a novel numerical method called “Computational Piezo-Grains” (CPGs) for modeling different types of piezoelectric/piezomagnetic composites in the microscale. The advantage of this method is that the matrix and the inclusion of a grain can be modeled using only one element in a finite element sense. The geo...