We present an integrated circuit capable of scavenging energy from repetitive changes in finger touch capacitance. A finger tapping on this ASIC generates a capacitive change of approximately 770pF. These changes feed into a charge-pump circuit which stores 320pJ of energy on a 1nF storage capacitor. We present measurement results and simulations that demonstrate operation. As a proof-of-concept, we also demonstrate that the harvested energy can power a ring oscillator which outputs a series of chirps with frequencies ranging from 80Hz to 30kHz as the storage capacitor voltage charges and discharges.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.05076,
title = {Charge-pumping with finger capacitance in a custom electrostatic energy harvesting ASIC},
author = {Alyssa Y. Zhou and Michel M. Maharbiz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.05076},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures, The following article has been accepted by Applied Physics Letters. After it is published, it will be found at https://aip.scitation.org/journal/apl