Employing a MEMS plasma switch for conditioning high-voltage kinetic energy harvesters

Hemin Zhang, Frédéric Marty, Xin Xia, Yunlong Zi, Tarik Bourouina, Dimitri Galayko () and Philippe Basset ()
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Hemin Zhang: ESYCOM, Univ Gustave Eiffel, CNRS, CNAM, ESIEE Paris
Frédéric Marty: ESYCOM, Univ Gustave Eiffel, CNRS, CNAM, ESIEE Paris
Xin Xia: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.
Yunlong Zi: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T.
Tarik Bourouina: ESYCOM, Univ Gustave Eiffel, CNRS, CNAM, ESIEE Paris
Dimitri Galayko: Sorbonne Université, LIP6
Philippe Basset: ESYCOM, Univ Gustave Eiffel, CNRS, CNAM, ESIEE Paris

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Triboelectric nanogenerators have attracted wide attention due to their promising capabilities of scavenging the ambient environmental mechanical energy. However, efficient energy management of the generated high-voltage for practical low-voltage applications is still under investigation. Autonomous switches are key elements for improving the harvested energy per mechanical cycle, but they are complicated to implement at such voltages higher than several hundreds of volts. This paper proposes a self-sustained and automatic hysteresis plasma switch made from silicon micromachining, and implemented in a two-stage efficient conditioning circuit for powering low-voltage devices using triboelectric nanogenerators. The hysteresis of this microelectromechanical switch is controllable by topological design and the actuation of the switch combines the principles of micro-discharge and electrostatic pulling, without the need of any power-consuming control electronic circuits. The experimental results indicate that the energy harvesting efficiency is improved by two orders of magnitude compared to the conventional full-wave rectifying circuit.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17019-5

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