Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems

The synergy between the smart materials – power source – self-powered systems has provided the paradigm of “self-sustainable component and systems” for innovation driving the emergence of efficient and high-performance architectures. There is significant reduction in size and weight of the self-sustainable architectures as compared to traditional “grid-powered” or battery-powered devices. Some examples illustrating these self-sustainable architectures will be provided in this presentation covering solar, thermal, magnetic field and vibration energy harvesting. The presentation will emphasize recent advances made in synthesis of perovskite solar cells, thermoelectric materials and magnetoelectric laminate composites. Novel synthesis techniques such as spark plasma sintering, dry/wet aerosol deposition, laser annealing, and template grain growth have provided the opportunity to develop materials with specific figure of merit. In case of magnetoelectric composites, interface design through controlled laser annealing has opened the opportunity to achieve high coupling factors responsible for high power density under dual field excitation. The results show that by matching the interface mechanical impedance and imposing self-biased response is critical towards achieving high volumetric and power density. Using the modules and laminates, harvesters were fabricated and integrated with wireless sensor nodes. In-depth discussion of the design, modeling and testing procedures will be provided to illustrate the strategy behind achieving high power density and efficiency in magnetic field, vibration, thermal and light harvesters.