Abstract

The increasing demand of piezoelectric energyharvesters for wearable and implantable applications requiresbiocompatible materials and careful structural device design, payingspecial attention to the conformability characteristics, properlytailored to scavenge continuously electrical energy even from thetiniest body movements. This paper provides a comprehensive studyon a flexible and biocompatible aluminum nitride (AlN) energyharvester based on a new alternative fabrication approach, exploiting athin polyimide (PI) substrate, prepared by spin coating of precursorssolution. This strategy allows manufacturing substrates with adjustablethickness to meet conformability requirements. The device isbased on a piezoelectric AlN thin film, sputtered directly onto the softPI substrate, without poling/annealing processes and patterned bysimple and low cost microfabrication technologies. AlN active layer,grown on soft substrate, exhibits good morphological and structural properties with roughness root mean squared (Rrms) of 6.35nm, columnar texture and (002) c-axis orientation. Additionally, piezoelectric characterization has been performed and theextracted piezoelectric coefficient value of AlN thin film resulted to be 4.93 ± 0.09 pm/V. The fabricated flexible AlN energyharvester generates an output peak-to-peak voltage of ~1.4 V and a peak-to-peak current up to 1.6 ?A, under periodicaldeformation, corresponding to a current density of 2.1 ?A/cm2, and providing a maximum generated power of 1.57 ?W underoptimal resistive load. Furthermore, the AlN energy harvester exhibits high elasticity and resistance to mechanical fatigue. Highquality AlN piezoelectric layers on elastic substrates with tunable thicknesses pave the way for the development of astraightforward technological platform for wearable/implantable energy harvesters and biomechanical sensors.

Autore Pugliese

• Giannini Cinzia , Sibillano Teresa

Tutti gli autori

• Algieri L.; Todaro M.T.; Guido F.; Mastronardi V.; Desmaële D.; Qualtieri A.; Giannini C.; Sibillano T.; De Vittorio M.

Titolo volume/Rivista

ACS applied energy materials

Anno di pubblicazione

2018

ISSN

2574-0962

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

Non Disponibile