Simulation and analysis of electromagnetic in-plane microgenerator

This study focuses on the design, simulation, fabrication, and test of the in-plane microgenerator to obtain a high-power output. The microgenerator comprises multilayer planar silver (Ag) microcoil of low-temperature cofired ceramics (LTCC) and multipole hard magnet of Nd/Fe/B (neodymium, iron, and boron). The LTCC process is an approach that saves costs and time to fabricate the microcoil. The multipole hard magnet of Nd/Fe/B provides the large magnetic energy product to contribute to the power. Finite element simulations have been carried out using COMSOL Multiphysics (R) to observe electromagnetic information. The induced voltages of coils in different basic geometric shapes, including square-shaped coils, circle-shaped coils, and sector-shaped coils, are simulated separately in this study. A prototype of the microgenerator is <1 cm(3) in volume size. The simulated result can be compared to the experimental one. The results of simulation reveal that this microgenerator with a sector-shaped microcoil generates a maximum effective value of the induced voltage of 232.7 mV and the power of 2.5 mW. And the 1-mu m gap between the microcoil and the magnet achieved is the value that is mentioned above. Experimental measurement shows close agreement with finite element simulations. (C) 2009 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.3152363]