EE 530 Introduction to MEMS and bioMEMS

Final Project Report

A study of bimorphs as energy harvester

Compiled by: Satyam K Bhuyan and Ben Pecholt

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Iowa State University
Guided by: Dr. Liang Dong
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
December 10, 2007

Abstract
The use of MEMS devices as a method for harvesting waste heat is
explored here. A background for the technology and methods is explored and a
method proposed for a working device based upon a thermally heated bimorph
actuated by waste radiation alone is discussed. A chopper interrupts the radiant
energy inducing an oscillation in the bimorph temperature and thus creates a
mechanical motion which can be take advantage of using piezoelectric materials.
Difficulties in harvesting radiant energy with this method are highlighted and
suggestions for non-passive energy generation are made based on the principles
outline here.

Background
Power harvesting, energy harvesting, power scavenging, and energy
scavenging are four terms commonly used to describe the process of extracting
useful electrical energy from other ambient energy sources using special
materials that have the ability to convert one form of energy into another. While
the words power and energy have vastly different definitions, the terms power
harvesting and energy harvesting are used interchangeably throughout much
of the literature to describe the same process of extracting electrical energy from
ambient sources. Even though most of the energy coupling materials currently
available have been around for decades, their use for the specific purpose of
power harvesting has not been thoroughly examined until recently, when the
power requirements of many electronic devices has reduced drastically.

In the past few years, much attention has been paid to the power sources of
small wireless electronic devices, due to the rapid development of remote
microsensors and microelectronic devices in various applications.
Earlier studies on the structures of various piezoelectric devices included Roundy
et al [1] studies on a piezoelectric bimorph harvester and included the effect of
the remaining portions of the harvester on the harvesting structure by an
electrically induced damping term of linearity. Even in their recent analysis on
micro-piezoelectric generators, Lu et al [2] have studied the conversion of
mechanical energies into electrical energies using a circuit represented by a
resistor linked with a rectifier. Yang et al [3], Hu et al [4] and Jiang et al [5]
studied the mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion of a piezoelectric element
driven mechanically. Furthermore, researchers have already been able to design
a harvesting structure with a very low natural frequency, suitable for scavenging
energy from a low-frequency ambient vibration [6]. We know that vibrations come
in varying frequency. In that case, the piezoelectric structures of power
harvesters should be designed with adjustable natural frequencies so that strong
interaction can happen between the two time scales corresponding to the
bimorph natural frequency and the external driving frequency, respectively.

Introduction
Harvesting heat energy on the micro scale is of relevance for harvesting and
generating power. Small changes in temperature can be transformed into micron
level deflection which could lead to more efficient automobiles and power

generation cycles in the future by reducing the amount of waste heat. It is a well
known limit in the study of thermodynamics that the limitation of energy extraction
from a hot reservoir to a cold reservoir is given by the Carnot efficiency cycle. In
practice the Carnot Cycle is impossible but we can hope to produce small
increases in efficiency of our heat engines which would lead to a dramatic
reduction of energy usage while energy harvesting can also have profound
impact on powering wireless devices.

= 1

Th
Tc

Bimorph structures which are under-reported by the literature could prove to

be an interesting response to the Carnot Cycle on the MEMS scale. Consider a
bimorph which derives micron scale deflection from a change of a few degrees
Kelvin coupled with this low thermal mass and ability to rapidly heat and cool.
Such a cantilever could be made to operate being heated by a hot reservoir and
discharge its heat to a cold reservoir upon deformation. Such a design could lead
to not only harvesting of energy, but could be used for active energy generation
in a MEMS scale heat engine. Radiant energy is one particular form of energy
that may provide a useful insight into the development of this class of MEMS
devices.

Radiant energy
Energy is found in different forms, such as light, heat, sound and motion.
There are many forms of energy, but they can all be put into two categories:
kinetic and potential. Radiant Energy is electromagnetic energy that travels in

transverse waves. Radiant energy includes visible light, x-rays, gamma rays and
radio waves. Light is one type of radiant energy. Solar energy is an example of
radiant energy.
The quantity of radiant energy may be calculated by integrating radiant flux
(or power) with respect to time and, like all forms of energy, its SI unit is the joule.
Radiant energy is generally thought of as radiation emitted by a source into the
surrounding environment. It propagates in the form of electromagnetic waves, or
traveling subatomic, atomic or molecular particles. Specific forms of radiant
energy include electron space discharge, visible light, and other wave types.
Radiant energy is exhibited in the spontaneous nuclear disintegration with
emission of particulate or electromagnetic radiations

Figure 1 Radiant energy spectrum

Harvesting Energy using the Photo-Electric Effect

The emission spectra for a body falls under a spectral emission defined by
the Planck distribution where the emitted radiation varies continuously with
wavelength and at any wavelength the magnitude of the emitted radiation
increases with temperature[10]. The blackbody radiation emission from the sun is
highest in the visible light spectrum of 0.4 to 0.7 m corresponding to a photon
energy of 3.1 and 2.07eV where increasing wavelengths result in lower photon
energies. Solar collectors made of semiconductors with bandgaps in this light
regime to take advantage of the photo-electric effect are a mature technology.
However photons with energy levels below that of the semiconductor bandgap
such as those in the Infrared regime cannot be absorbed by traditional methods.

Harvesting Energy using Pyroelectric materials

These materials can have been commonly used for applications of IR
sensing by generating a measurable voltage, current, or charge caused by a
change in temperature. These devices have been used to realize for the
application of IR sensors however these materials are not ideal for energy
harvesting purposes because they absorb radiation for a narrow band and are
difficult to grow [11]. On the contrary, a harvesting method using bimorphs can
potentially lead to a higher absorption regime and cheaper technology.

Bimorph
The typical application of a bimorph is for actuation where the bimorph actuator
has a number of advantages:

Easier control of the structure and effective conversion of mechanical

strain into electrical voltage and vice versa

Simple structure containing only piezoelectric film, electrodes and very

flexible layer (does not introduce any significant stiffness in the diaphragm,
nor residual stress);

With larger sensitivity and signal/noise ratio and higher fundamental

resonant frequency, it has inherently higher figure of merit than a unimorph device.

Conformal deposition allowing various diaphragm shapes

The potential difficulties working with these type of bimorph devices are the

low energy conversion efficiency (around 7 times less the energy conversion
efficiency of the multilayer piezoelectric actuator), and high power consumption.
In addition they have unstable displacement which increases shift and creep
phenomena, and low response speed.
While bimorphs for energy harvesting are not common in the literature the
cantilever structure is common place for harvesting applications such as vibration
harvesting. Most often, the bimorph is also mounted in a cantilever configuration
with a tip mass added to increase strain and to lower the natural frequency of the

vibrating beam. One particular configuration of the Bimorph cantilever uses a thin
layer of metal sandwiched between two layers of piezoelectric material.

Figure 2 Schematic of a bimorph structure

The exact size of the mass attached to the tip can also be specified so that
the bimorph operates within the range of an ambient driving frequency base
excitation. Figure 3 is a graphical representation of the simplest model for such a
device. The first natural frequency of a slender cantilever beam with a
concentrated end mass as given by Blevins is [7]

n =

3EI
L ( M b + 0.24M )

(1)

where E is the modulus of elasticity, I is the moment of inertia, L is the length of

the beam, M is the mass of the beam, and M is the concentrated bulk end mass.
b

In reality, when an electromagnetic shaker is used to simulate the excitation and

for many of the harvesting applications, the left end of the beam cannot be
modeled as fixed but rather as another very large vibrating mass. Improved

models are being developed by Erturk and Inman [8] to better modeled the left
side of the beam. However, to simplify the equations in this section, the left end
is assumed to have a fixed boundary condition.

Figure 3 Cantilever beam with added tip mass

A piezoelectric bimorph is more complicated than this simple cantilever

beam model in that it consists of a metal shim layer sandwiched between two
piezoceramic layers. Therefore, an equivalent Youngs modulus and moment of
inertia must be calculated in order to determine the first natural frequency.
In case of thermally activated bimorph cantilevers, dissimilar structural
materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) are sandwiched
together. When the top layer has greater CTE than the bottom layer, bimorphs
flatten when heated and curl when cooled. In addition, due to intrinsic stresses
generated in the structural layers during the fabrication process, bimorphs are
initially deflected from the substrate surface. Intrinsic stresses apply during a
bimorph actuation can be modeled using using Stoneys theorem equation 2
which gives the stress at the material interface as a function of the CTE of the
materials, the change in temperature and the Youngs Modulus of the material.

(2)
where f is the induced stress at the interface.
Beam analysis with one end fixed and assuming a hyperbolic shape to the beam
the shape of the beam is derived in equation 3. Further detail on the derivation of
this equation can be seen in appendix A.

(3)

Using equation 3 it is possible to develop a displacement for the beam under

very small increases in temperature on the order of magnitude of a few degrees
Kelvin if the materials and bimorph dimensions are carefully selected.

Working Principal of the Radiation activated Bimorph

Cantilever
The radiation activated Bimorph functions as a thermally actuated bimorph
where instead of using joule heating this method uses radiation energy to heat
the bimorph and induce a mechanical deformation of the cantilever as seen in
figure 4. In this particular example a mechanical chopper must be utilized to
interrupt the flow of radiation to allow the cantilever to cool as illustrated below in
figure 4.

Radiant Energy

Radiant Energy

b)

a)

c)

d)

Figure 4 - Radiation harvesting bimorph actuation while a)

heating b) deforming c) blocked radiation d) cooling

The top view of the device with the bimorph array substrate and mechanical
chopper can be seen in figure 5.

Figure 5 Bimorph array (orange) and a mechanical radiation

chopper (black)

Analysis and behavior of the bimorph cantilever

Analyzing the bimorph using the lumped capacitance method by assuming a
low Biot number the energy balance for the system is:

(4)
Where the term, , represents the amount of absorbed incident radiation
energy by the bimorph. This analysis is based upon the assumption that the
heating can be modeled using the lumped capacitance method and that the
entire cantilever is uniformly heated by the radiation. At very high repetition rates
only the top layer of the bimorph will be heated resulting in a faster response
than is modeled here. Its obvious that the cantilever will fall under a steady state
condition if allowed to be exposed to a continuous stream of radiation. For
harvesting energy a chopper must be used. If we assume the use of some form
of a chopper we can convert equation 4 into a transfer function. For our system
we assume the properties as illustrated in Table 1 with a convection coefficient of
25 W/m-k which is the upper end of the estimated range for free convection
cooling lower values of convective cooling result in a higher response per energy
input.

Table 1 - Bimorph design specifications

Bimorph Cantilever Propeties

Length 100 m
Width 50 m
Substrate Thickness 10 m
Film Thickness
1
m
Substrate Material
Silicon
Film Material
AlN

The bode diagram in figure DD indicates that the desired range of input
frequency can be as high as 775 rad/s before the input energy will have no effect
on the bimorph. At very low frequency the amplitude is approximately 6dB.
Additional analysis of the minimum temperature To indicates that this temperature
is not affected until a much higher frequency range is achieved.

Figure 6 Bode Diagram of the response temperature of the

cantilever with respect to the energy input for a convection
cooling coefficient of 25W/m-K

Solving the Blevins equation we can determine the appropriate mass to put at
the end of the cantilever to achieve a resonant frequency in lower range of the
heating bode diagram. In doing so we make the assumption is made that the
cantilever deformation is in phase with the temperature change we can select a
chopped radiation frequency of 100 rad/s where the temperature to radiation
response is approximately 6dB we can solve for the required concentrated mass
as determined in Appendix C, This indicates that the mass at the end of the
cantilever must be approximately equal to the 185 nano-grams for a chopped
radiation frequency of 100 rad/s. A mesoscale chopper can be used on the
principal of a toy radiometer which will rotate due to currents induced by the
heated surfaces of the blade.

Fabrication of bimorph actuators

Bimorphs used for actuation have been discussed in the literature for a
polymide-gold bimorph are outlined in the schematic below (Fig. 7). The detailed
steps of fabrication have been discussed in detailed in a paper by Al Aioubi et al
[9] where they used a N-doped silicon wafers coated with a 0.5 m thick layer of
silicon dioxide in a plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD)
system. This was followed by the deposition of a thin layer of gold using sputter
deposition onto a Cr adhesion layer (Fig. 7(a)). Polyimide was next spin coated
and cured at 120 C. For the microheater fabrication, a 0.2 m thin layer of
chromium was deposited on top of the polyimide and patterned ( Fig. 7(b)). An
additional polyimide layer was spin-coated on top of the patterned chromium and

then the cantilever structures were defined using a combination of

photolithography for the polyimide and wet chemical etching for gold ( Fig. 7(c)
and (d)). Release of the bimorph was achieved by under etch of the Cr adhesion
layer beneath the Au coating.

Figure 7 Polyimidegold cantilever fabrication process sequence.

Contrary to the Polyamide type bimorph which has been described, materials
with higher thermal conductivity must be used for a radiation actuated bimorph.
Here we suggest the use of a silicon substrate using an AlN thin film. For the
design proposed here for a radiation actuated bimorph the fabrication steps will
include SOI technology which is similar to the method proposed by Qingkai Yu et
al. to fabricate short and thin AFM cantilevers [12].
Step 1: Starting with an SOI wafer pattern the back oxide and bulk etch the
backside

Step 2: Pattern the front side oxide and pattern the silicon

Step 3: Remove the front side oxide and reduce the thickness of the silicon to the
desired thickness

Step 4: PR desposit and pattern to create the AlN layer and repeat to form the
PZT Layer. Finally deposit metal contacts for energy harvesting.

Step 5: Pattern the backside oxide and the device is now complete.

Future Work
The method proposed here demonstrates a method of harvesting radiation
energy from an external source using a passively controlled radiation chopper,
however this macro scale device could be a source of large energy loss,
inefficiency, and in-ability to control the cycle and would require a complex
control system to harvest the energy from the cantilevers due to their nonsynchronous behavior. Future work in this area beyond proving the initial concept
might include an active generation of energy such as a MEMS engine which
would operate an array of bimorphs on a large scale combustion manifold. The
combustion manifold would be a source of both radiant and convective heat

whereby the bimorphs would deform and touch a porous silicon substrate filled
with a flammable fuel such as methanol which would then be vaporized at 64.7
Celsius and enter the combustion manifold then ignited by a control loop that can
monitor temperature.

a)

b)

c)
Figure 13 Methanol powered heat
engine using the concept of a bimorph
actuator a) combustion b) expansion
and interaction with methanol c)
cooled cantilever and methanol cloud
ready for combustion.

Conclusion
Thermally actuated bimorphs have the potential to be realized as an
efficient method for both passive harvesting and active energy generation. Clever
applications of the bimorph and the exploitation of the fact that they can generate
high deformations with small temperature inputs can lead to devices that can
rapidly build up and discharge heat to their environments. Devices based upon

radiation harvesting require large scale chopper devices to create an intermittent

input radiation and do not offer a large degree of control over the behavior of the
system. Alternative systems that are actuated by some form of controllable input
such as a combustion cycle must be considered when attempting to develop a
MEMS device based upon a heat cycle.

References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Roundy S L, Leland E S, and B. J, Improving power output for vibrationbased energy scavengers IEEE Pervas. Comput., 2005. 4: p. 28-36.
Lu F, Lee H P, and L.S. P, Modeling and analysis of micro piezoelectric
power generators for micro-electromechanical-systems applications.
Smart Mater. Struct., 2004. 13: p. 57-63.
Yang J S, et al., Performance of a piezoelectric harvester in thicknessstretch mode of a plate. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control,
2005. 52(1872-6).
Hu Y T, X.H., Yang J S and Jiang Q, Nonlinear behavior of a piezoelectric
power harvester near resonance. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq.
Control, 2006. 53: p. 1387-91.
Jiang S N, et al., A piezoelectric analysis of a vibrating ceramic bimorph
for power harvesting. Smart Mater. Struct., 2005. 14: p. 769-74.
Hu Y T, Hu H P, and Y.J. S, A low frequency piezoelectric power
harvester using a spiral-shaped bimorph. Sci. China G, 2006. 49(6).
Blevins, R.D., Formulas for Natural Frerquency and Mode Shape. 1979,
New York: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.
Erturk, A. and D.J. Inman, Mechanical Considerations for Modeling of
Vibration-Based Energy Harvesters. Proceedings of the ASME 2007
IDETC/CIE 2007, 2007. in press.
M.Y. Al Aioubi, et al., Deflection and load characterisation of bimorph
actuators for bioMEMS and other applications. Microelectronic
Engineering, 2004. 73-74: p. 898-903.
Fundementals of Heat Transfer. 6th ed. Frank P. Incorpria. Hoboken, NJ :
John Wiley. c2007
M.H. Lee, R. Guo & A.S. Bhalla, Pyroelectric Sensors, Journal of
Electroceramics n. 2 vol. 4 pp. 229-242 (1998)
Qingkai Yu, Guoting Qin, Chinmay Darne, Chengzhi Cai,
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Appendices
Appendix A Deformation of the Bi-Morph Cantilever Using Stoneys
Theorem:
Bending in a bimorph is caused by the stresses induced by the thermal
expansion mis-match of the materials:
Using Stoneys formula for thinfilm stress we resort to:
t
h/2

h/2
For a cantilever case the moment of the beam is:

For a beam:
Boundary Conditions:
@X = 0:
and
@X = L:

We assume a parabolic type shape to the beam bending:

Appendix B - Bimorph Beam Heating

Assumptions:
1) Lumped Capacitance method is used here
2) The substrate is used as the bulk material ignoring the film thermal
characteristics
3) The coefficient of convection is on the range of 2 25W/m-k
Because the beam is very thin we make the assumption that the Biot number is
very high thus we can use lumped capacitance to solve the problem:

Let To be a constant and convert to Laplace form:

For the Cooling Case we use the same transfer function but let the radiant
energy be equal to zero:

Appendix C Calculation of the concentrated mass using the assumed

beam parameters of Table 1.
3EI
L ( M b + 0.24 M )
( n )2 (M b + 0.24M ) = 3EI3
L

n =

( n )2 (M b + 0.24M ) = 3EI3
L

Mb =

3EI

L ( n )
3

0.24 M

3E bh 3
12
0.24 bhL
M b = 3
2
L ( n )

Mb =

kg m 2

s
3160
m2

1
3
12 (50 E 6m )(10 E 6m )

1000 g
0.241.24 g 3 (50 E 4cm )(10 E 4cm )(100 E 4cm )
2
kg
cm

(100 E 6m )3 100 rad s

M b = 1.85 E 7 g = 185ng