• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2011.06a
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• pp.591-592
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• 2011

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.631-631
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• 2013

Battery has major drawbacks including its size and life expectancy, and environmental problem. As an alternative, energy harvesting is emerging as a potential solution to replace battery along with more energy-efficient IT devices. The idea of harnessing energy from our living environment is sustainable, semi-permanent, and eco-friendly. Also, unlike battery, energy harvester does not require much space to store energy. Therefore, energy harvesting can provide a better source of power for small, portable, and wireless devices. Among various ways of harvesting energy from our surroundings, triboelectricity is chosen due to its potential to be miniaturized, and efficient. Triboelectric effect occurs as two different materials with different polarity of charge separation come into contact through friction, and then become separated so that electric potential difference is achieved. In this research, such characteristic of triboelectricity is used as a way to convert ambient mechanical energy into electric energy.Series of recent researches have shown promising results that the triboelectric energy harvester can be simple and cost effective. However, sufficient electricity level required to operate mobile devices has not yet been achieved.In this research, our group focuses on the design and optimization of triboelectric energy harvesting device to enhance its output. By using maskless lithography to pattern Kapton film and silicon substrate, which is used as a mold for PDMS thin layer, and sputtering metal electrodes on each side, we fabricate and demonstrate different designs of triboelectric energy harvester that utilizes the contact electrification between a polymer thin film and a metal thin foil. In order to achieve optimized result, the output voltage and current are measured under diverse conditions, which include different surface structure and pattern, material, and the gap between layers.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1240_1241
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• 2009

In this paper, sol-gel-spin coated $Pb(ZrTi)O_3$ thin film with $ZrO_2$ buffer-layer and $PbTiO_3$ seed-layer was investigated for vibration MEMS energy harvester to scavenge power from ambient vibration via d33 piezoelectric mode. Piezoelectric thin film deposition techniques on insulating layer is the important key for $d_{33}$ mode of piezoelectric vibration energy harvester. $ZrO_2$ buff-layer was utilized as an insulating layer. $PbTIO_3$ seed-layer was applied as an inter-layer between PZT and $ZrO_2$ layer to improve the crystalline of PZT thin film. The fabricated PZT thin film had a remanent polarization of 5.3uC/$cm^2$ and the coercive field of 60kV/cm. The fabricated energy harvester using PZT thin film with PTO seed-layer generated 1.1uW of electrical power to $2.2M{\Omega}$ of load with $4.4V_{pvp}$ from vibration of 0.39g at 528Hz.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.511-515
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• 2012

A road energy harvester was designed and fabricated to convert mechanical energy from the vehicle load to electrical energy. The road energy harvester is composed of 24 piezoelectric cantilevers and a vehicle load transfer mechanism. Applying a vehicle load transfer mechanism rather than directly installing energy harvesters under roads decreases the area of road construction and allows more energy harvesters to be installed on the side of the road. The power generation amount with respect to the vehicular velocity change was assessed by installing the vehicle load transfer mechanism and the energy harvester in the form of speed bumps and underground. The energy harvester installed in a speed bump form generated power of 7.61 mW at the vehicular velocity of 20 km/h. Also, power generation of the energy harvester installed in the underground form was 63.9 mW at the vehicular velocity of 28 km/h. Although the number of piezoelectric cantilevers was reduced by 1/3 to 24 in comparison to the previous research results with 72 piezoelectric cantilevers, similar power generation characteristic value was obtained within the vehicular velocity of 20 km/h by altering the vehicle load transfer mechanism and cantilever vibration method.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.601-606
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• 2016

In this paper, an energy harvester is developed that has advantages regarding piezoelectric noise minimization, mass production, and an easily available environmental energy source, electromagnetic induction, as well as low-frequency bandwidth and high amplitude. A process for fabricating a three-dimensional multilayered planar coil using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) on a flexible printed circuit board FPCB is introduced. Optimal shape and size were calculated via internal resistance and inductance, and a prototype was fabricated through the MEMS procedure while considering the possibility of mass production. Although the internal resistance matched the designed value, the electromotive force generated did not reach the intended amount. The main reason for the decrease in efficiency was the low area of coil outskirt exposed to the magnetic field while there was relative motion between the magnet and the coil.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.298-302
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• 2012

This paper describes the design and fabrication of a low frequency vibration driven high-efficiency electromagnetic energy harvester based on FR(Flame Resistance)-4 spring which converts mechanical energy into useful electrical power. The fabricated generator consists of a vertically polarized NdFeB permanent magnet attached to the center of spring and a planar type copper coil which has higher efficiency compare with cylindrical type coil. ANSYS finite analysis and Matlab were used to determine the resonance frequency and output power. The generator is capable of producing up to 1.36 $V_{pp}$ at 9 Hz, which has the maximum power of 639 ${\mu}W$ with a load resistance of $3.25k{\Omega}$.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.206-211
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• 2010

Piezoelectric energy harvesting uses piezoelectric, which is able to convert unused mechanical vibration energy to electrical energy, such as with motor and machinery. The piezoelectric energy harvester was constructed with a cantilever made of lead zirconate titanate with a metal plate. The primary material was soft lead zirconium titanate (PZT-5H) due to the large strain availability, acceptable mechanical strength and high piezoelectric constant. This technique's drawback is that the energy efficiency is lower than the other energy harvesting methods, but this study increases the output electric power efficiency by analyzing a finite element method for the structure of the piezoelectric energy harvester. We manufactured two cantilever types as follows: the L-60 and L-33 bimorph piezoelectric energy harvesters. Their resulting energy harvesters were able to obtain high voltage values as follows: 27.4 mV and 40.6 mV. Moreover, these results have a similar band of resonance frequency it comparison to the simulation. Consequently, this study was confirmed with validity. The output electric powers of the L-60 and L-33 types have 3.1 mW/s and 5.8 mW/s with 47 Hz and 148 Hz of resonance frequency and then, the load resistivities were $100k\Omega$ and $10k\Omega$, respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.637-644
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• 2010

A vibration-powered piezoelectric energy harvester yields the maximum power output when its resonant frequency is made equal to the excitation frequency; however, the power output is dramatically decreased when the energy harvester is operated at off-resonance frequency. It has been observed that the resonant frequency of a piezoelectric energy harvester may change with time and that the excitation frequency often varies when the energy harvester is used in real applications. Hence, in this study, we propose a piezoelectric energy-harvesting module that is suitable for excitations in a certain frequency range. The frequency characteristics of the electrical output of the module are studied through analysis and experiment. A simple frequency tuning method is also suggested for the proposed energy-harvesting module; in this method, frequency tuning is achieved by changing the electrical connections between the constituent energy-harvesting units of the module.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.943-948
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• 2012

A new water energy harvester module, which is composed of piezoelectric bimorph cantilevers, harvesting circuit and a shaft with 16 impellers at a center axis, was fabricated for energy harvesting application. High energy density $Pb(Zr_{0.54}Ti_{0.46})O_3$ + 0.2 wt% $Cr_2O_3$ + 1.0 wt% $Nb_2O_5$ (PZT-CN) thick film obtained by tape casting method was used for the bimorph cantilever. The PZT-CN bimorph cantilever with a proof mass of 49 g exhibited extremely high output power of 22.5 mW (24 $mW//cm^3$) at resonance frequency of 11 Hz. In addition, the fabricated water energy harvester has a cylindrical structure with 48 bimorph cantilevers clamped at inner surface. A significantly high output power of 433 mW was obtained at a rotation speed of 120 rpm with a resistive load of $500{\Omega}$ for the water energy harvester.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.198-203
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• 2013

Energy harvesting refers to converting ambient energy from our surroundings, which would be otherwise wasted, into useful electrical energy. A triboelectric energy harvester is a self-charged device for harnessing mechanical energy based on a coupled process of contact charging and electrostatic induction. In this research, we demonstrate simple fabrication of prototype triboelectric energy harvester using soft lithography and its electrical characterization. Triboelectric generation occurs between the two micro patterned layers of Au and PDMS. A micro pattern is simply replicated directly from the bottom layer to the top layer using soft-lithography without an extra transfer process. This generator can produce an output voltage of 2 V and output current of 20 nA.