Open AccessPower generation from microfluidic drops using inorganic silicon dioxide electret film
Author(s) -
Zhu Jianxiong,
Wang Hai
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
micro and nano letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.25
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1750-0443
DOI - 10.1049/mnl.2018.5090
Subject(s) - electret , microfluidics , materials science , acceleration , voltage , energy harvesting , silicon dioxide , silicon , power (physics) , optoelectronics , work (physics) , silicon oxide , electrical engineering , nanotechnology , composite material , physics , engineering , thermodynamics , silicon nitride , classical mechanics
This work proposes a microfluidic structure utilising its damping motion for energy harvesting based on a microfabricated electret silicon oxide (SiO 2 ). When the device was subjected to an instantaneous acceleration, the power was generated due to the variable shape of the microfluidic on the electret SiO 2 film. The damped wave phenomena came from the variable shape of microfluidic which oscillated back and forth due to inertial forces. With a larger acceleration on the device, the peak value of a short‐circuit current ( I sc ) and an open‐circuit voltage ( V oc ) were increasing as a function of linear equation and quadratic equation, respectively. The microfluidic energy harvester reached up to 3 nA of I sc and 0.18 V of V oc with an acceleration 4 m/s 2 , respectively. Moreover, with a microdrop with dimension 15 mm 3 on the inorganic SiO 2 film, the work demonstrated that the device can obtain V oc of 0.3 V and I sc of 3 nA with a sliding angle ∼30°, which showed further applications for an angle sensing.