Thermal-to-electric energy conversion using ferroelectric film capacitors

Abstract

The capacitive ferroelectric thermoelectric converter harvesting electrical energy through non-linear capacitance variation caused by changes in temperature is analyzed. The ferroelectric material used was the thin (0.5 μm) Ba0.3Sr0.7TiO3 film. On the basis of experimental dependencies of the ferroelectric film permittivity on temperature ranging from 100 K to 350 K under different electric fields up to 80 V/μm, the optimum values of operating temperatures and electric field for the energy harvesting optimization were determined. For the temperature oscillations of ±15 K around room temperature and electric field about 40 V/μm, the harvested energy was estimated as 30 mJ/cm3. It is shown that the use of thin ferroelectric films for rapid capacitance variation versus temperature and microelectromechanical systems for fast temperature modulations may be a relevant solution for creation of small power scale generators for portable electronics.