Miniaturized Thermal Energy Harvesting System

The purpose of this proposal is to develop an innovative thermal energy harvesting system which is substantially superior to commercially available devices. PowerMEMS believes that wireless technology is revolutionizing the industrial instrumentation world, but the idea of periodically replacing batteries in thousands of wireless devices is unacceptable. Therefore, the key to developing a fully automated wireless based sensor network is providing remote power. To address this, PowerMEMS proposes a novel thermal energy harvesting system based on layered active materials. We propose using mechanically coupled thin film ferromagnetic alloy coupled with a thin film piezoelectric material. These novel active material thermal energy harvesting devices have potentially larger power/area energy conversion capability than currently available.