INTRODUCTION TO ELECTROSTATIC KINETIC ENERGY HARVESTING BASED ON THE TRIBOELECTRIC EFFECT
Philippe Basset
ESIEE Paris, FRANCE

Abstract
As for any electrostatic transducers, triboelectric (nano)generators (TENGs) need to maximize their DC bias voltage for a good kinetic-to-electrical energy conversion. TENGs have the great advantage to self-generate high AC open-circuit voltage of several hundred volts peak, but with relatively low short-circuit current. However, most applications require DC voltages around only a few volts, with DC currents of at least a few tens of µA in order to generate a minimum average power of 100 µW. In addition, if a very high DC voltage can be obtained directly with a diode bridge for some state-of-art TENGs, a recent class of unstable charge-pump conditioning circuits can also be used to reach such high values with more basic TENGs.

Whatever the chosen solution, for most applications this high output voltage of a TENG must be reduced to a few volts to power an electronic device. So, a power management circuit is needed to generate a low DC voltage for the load, while implementing a high voltage interface at the transducer's side, so to maximize the converted power.

This tutorial will present an introduction to modeling and conditioning triboelectric generators, and how to deal with the generated high voltage to maximize the electromechanical conversion efficiency.

Bio
Philippe Basset is professor at Univ Gustave Eiffel / ESIEE Paris and deputy director of ESYCOM lab. He completed his Ph.D from IEMN - University of Lille (2003) in the areas of microelectronic and micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS). In 2004 he was a post-doc at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. In 2005 he joined ESIEE Paris at the Université Paris-Est (now Université Gustave Eiffel), France, where he developed the activities on mechanical energy harvesting at the micro scale. His current research interests include micro-power sources for autonomous sensors, conditioning systems for triboelectric generators and micro/nano-structuration of silicon.