Performance of Thin Piezoelectric Materials for Pyroelectric Energy Harvesting

This article considers pyroelectric energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials such as PZT-5A, PMN-PT, PVDF, and thin-films. A model is developed to predict the power generation based on the temporal change in temperature of the material. The measured and predicted power measurements are compared, where the maximum power density of 0.36 mu W/cm(2) is calculated with PMN-PT. The predicted peak power density under similar boundary conditions for thin-film lead scandium tantalate is over 125 mu W/cm(2). The study concludes that the power density is highly dependent upon the surface area and the pyroelectric coefficient of the material, underlining the importance of maximizing these parameters.