Abstract Piezoelectric transducers which rely on oscillating cantilever-type beams to harvest mechanical energy locally available in environments have been of great interest as a substitute for batteries. Most the research efforts focus mostly designs aim at resonance matching achieve maximum output without taking degradation piezoelectric layers into consideration. The purpose this study is pr...

We have examined both experimentally and theoretically a piezoelectric unimorph cantilever as a liquid viscosity-and-density sensor. The fabricated piezoelectric unimorph consisted of a PbO•ZrO2•TiO2 ~PZT! layer on a thin stainless-steel plate. In addition to a driving electrode, a sensing electrode was placed on top of the PZT layer, permitting the direct measurement of the resonance frequency...

The process of capturing the energy from a system’s environment or surrounding and converting it into usable electrical energy is termed as energy harvesting. One form of energy harvesting is to employ piezoelectric materials to harvest energy from vibrating structures. These materials have the ability to absorb the mechanical energy and transform it into electrical energy that can be used to p...

PALMER, JEREMY ANDREW. Development of Millimeter Scale Motors For Miniature Direct Drive Robots. (Under the direction of Dr. Edward Grant, and Dr. Jeffrey W. Eischen) The twentieth century marked a period of rapid expansion of technology associated with miniaturization of engineering systems. A recent theme in this trend is the development of miniature, distributed robots that mimic insect beha...

This work presents a high yield wafer scale fabrication of MEMS-based unimorph silicon/PZT thick film vibrational energy harvesters aimed towards vibration sources with peak frequencies in the range of a few hundred Hz. By combining KOH etching with mechanical front side protection, SOI wafer to accurately define the thickness of the silicon part of the harvester and a silicon compatible PZT th...

A novel surface micromachining process is reported for aluminum nitride (AlN) thin films to fabricate piezoelectric unimorph suspension devices for micro actuator applications. Wet anisotropic etching of AlN thin film is used with a Cr metal mask layer in the microfabrication process. Tetra methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) of 25 wt.% solution is used as an etching solution for the AlN thin film...