Optimal Design of Electromagnetic Harvester with Sputtered Thin NdFeB/Ta Film and Considering Lorentz Force

Abstract

This paper demonstrates an improvement in the generated power of a NdFeB electromagnetic vibration energy harvester by optimizing the device dimensions considering a mass-damper-spring system and the Lorentz force. The electromagnetic harvester follows a velocity-damped-resonant-generator (VDRG) model. When the electrical and mechanical attenuation coefficients are equivalent and the device is operated at a resonant state, the maximum power will be obtained. In this paper, we simulated and optimized the power generation considering a mass-damper-spring structure and the Lorentz force. From our simulation results, we determined an optimal design for 100 Hz and 3 µm_p-p of sinusoidal external vibration to generate 0.42 µW of power from the device with a 10 × 10 × 0.5 mm³ active harvesting area and 50 of Q-factor. This exhibits power that is 43 times larger than the previous design.