Vibration energy harvesting with aluminum nitride-based piezoelectric devices

This paper describes the measurement results of piezoelectric energy harvesters with aluminum nitride (AlN) as a piezoelectric material. AlN was chosen for its material properties and for its well-known sputter deposition process. For AlN devices a high optimum load resistance is required, which is favorable due to the high resulting voltage level. The output power harvested from mechanical vibrations has been measured on micromachined harvesters with different geometries. The resonance frequencies ranged from 200 up to 1200 Hz. The packaged devices had limited output powers and quality factors due to air damping caused by the package. A maximum output power of 60 µW has been measured on an unpackaged device at an acceleration of 2.0 g and at a resonance frequency of 572 Hz. The package of the harvester requires special attention, since air damping can significantly decrease the maximum power output.