Nonlinear metamaterials for electromagnetic energy harvesting

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference paperResearch

Abstract

Surrounded by electromagnetic radiation coming from wireless power transfer to consumer devices such as mobile phones, computers and television, our society is facing the scientific and technological challenge to recover energy that is otherwise lost to the environment. Energy harvesting is an emerging field of research focused on this largely unsolved problem, especially in the microwave regime. Metamaterials provide a very promising platform to meet this purpose. These artificial materials are made from subwavelength building blocks, and can be designed by resonate at particular frequencies, depending on their shape, geometry, size, and orientation. In this work, we show that an efficient electromagnetic energy harvester can be design by inserting a nonlinear element directly within the metamaterial unit cell, leading to the conversion of RF input power to DC charge accumulation. The electromagnetic energy harvester operating at microwave frequencies is built from a cut-wire metasurface, which operates as a quasistatic electric dipole resonator. Using the equivalent electrical circuit, we design the parameters to tune the resonance frequency of the harvester at the desired frequency, and we compare these results with numerical simulations. Finally, we discuss the efficiency of our metamaterial energy harvesters. This work potentially offers a variety of applications, for example in the telecommunications industry to charge phones, in robotics to power microrobots, and also in medicine to advance pacemakers or health monitoring sensors.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSPIE Nanoscience+ Engineering. San Diego
Place of PublicationSan Diego
PublisherSPIE
Pages992009-992009
Volume9920
Edition992009
Publication statusPublished - 9 Nov 2016

Keywords

  • Energy harvesting
  • Metamaterials
  • Resonators

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Nonlinear metamaterials for electromagnetic energy harvesting'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this