Piezo-driven hybrid device for energy harvesting and storage

In times of climate change, the request of green and renewable energy sources is ubiquitous for replacing conventional or fossil fuels. Various excitation mediums are offered by the environment like the sunlight, vibrations or temperature differences. For using these sustainable sources different energy harvesters are applied to convert the existing in electrical energy. However, this energy is only available at the moment of its generation. Thus, a storage device is required to enable the usage of the energy at any desired time. For decreasing converting losses and the entire size, energy storage and harvesting can be integrated into each other forming a hybrid device. These devices enable and prolong the application of sensors, microelectronics etc. in areas which are inaccessible for humans like hazardous regions or within the human body.

In this project, we focus on the integration of piezoelectric-based energy harvester into electrochemical energy storage devices. On one hand, the performance of these devices will be improved compared to already existing approaches, on the other hand the size of the devices will be gradually decreased. The future goal is the implementation of an on-chip hybrid device for powering directly the integrated microelectronics like sensors, digital storage or quantum technology devices.