[paper] Wearable Energy Harvester

A Piezoelectric-Transducer-Biased 3-D Photosensitive Thin-Film Transistor

as a Dual-Mode Wearable Energy Harvester

Emad Iranmanesh¹, Weiwei Li^2,3, Ahmed Rasheed^2,3, and Kai Wang^2,3 (Member IEEE)

IEEE EDL, Vol. 41, No. 9, Sept. 2020

DOI: 10.1109/LED.2020.3009685

¹School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China.
²Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
³State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China

Abstract: This letter reports on a dual-mode wearable energy harvester that utilizes both piezoelectric and photoelectric effects. It integrates a piezoelectric transducer with a 3-D photosensitive dual-gate thin-film transistor (DGTFT) as a rectifier and a buffer. The energy conversion efficiency is enhanced by reducing the internal resistance of the 3-D photosensitive DGTFT upon light illumination. Such a dual-mode energy harvester is promising for wearable electronics.

Fig.: a) Schematic diagram of the proposed wearable dual-mode energy harvester formed by a polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) transducer integrated with a self-driven diode-connected 3-D photosensitive DGTFT as a buffer and a rectifier;  b) Equivalent circuit of the proposed dual-mode harvester.

Acknowlwgement: This work was supported by the Guangdong Innovative Research and Entrepreneurial Team Program under Grant 2014ZT05D340