Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-30-2019
Abstract
The paper describes a stretchable, microfabricated power generator that will be attached on the skin and will produce energy based on the movements of the human body. The device was fabricated on a polymeric, elastomeric, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) sheet. It consists of a piezoelectric thin film of ZnO sandwiched between two stretchable gold electrodes. An innovative technique was used for the deposition of ZnO thin film on the gold electrode-coated polymeric substrate at low temperatures below 150C. This is the first attempt to use a uniform film of ZnO, for energy harvesting. The ZnO film had the thickness at the submicron scale and the surface at the centimeter scale. We demonstrated that under a strain of 8% the voltage output from this power generator was equal to 2 V, the power output was equal to 160 W and the corresponding power density was 1.27 mW/cm2. This device has great potential for application in power sensors attached on the human body, such as temperature sensors or wearable electrocardiography systems.
Comments
This article was originally published in Micromachines, available at doi:10.3390/mi10100661.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).