A Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System Assisted by A Piezoelectric Transducer Achieving 10-mV Cold-Startup and 82.7% Peak Efficiency

This article presents a 10mV-startup-voltage thermoelectric energy harvesting system, assisted by a piezoelectric generator (PEG) as a cold starter. It exploits the fact that when a thermoelectric energy harvesting system is implemented in a place where kinetic energy is also present, the PEG starter can provide a clock signal to start the...

A 90.6% Efficient, 0.333 W/mm2 Power Density Direct 48V-to-1V Dual Inductor Hybrid Converter with Delay-line Based V2D Controller

This brief presents a 48V-to-1V 10-level dual inductor hybrid converter (DIHC) containing 11 on-chip switches and an off-chip gallium nitride (GaN) switch. Thanks to the 10-level Dickson switched-capacitor (SC) circuit, most of the voltage stress will be taken over by off-chip capacitors, which reduces the voltage stress of each switch to 4.8...

A Single-Stage Three-Mode Reconfigurable Regulating Rectifier for Wireless Power Transfer

In this article, we propose a reconfigurable regulating rectifier with a wide operational range for wireless power transfer. The proposed three-mode rectifier achieves a broad range voltage regulation without global loop control to minimize the chip area occupation. Compared with previous work, more working modes and greater voltage gain...

A Dynamically Reconfigurable Recursive Switched-Capacitor DC-DC Converter with Adaptive Load Ability Enhancement

Multiple voltage conversion ratio (VCR) recursive switched-capacitor (SC) dc-dc converters, based on several basic 2:1 converters, are widely used for on-chip power supplies due to their flexible VCRs for higher energy efficiency. However, conventional multiple VCR SC converters usually have one or more 2:1 converters unused for some VCRs,...

Simultaneously Improved Bendability and Strength of Al–Mg–Si–Cu–Zn Alloys by Controlling the Formation and Evolution of Primary Fe-Rich Phase

In present work, the formation, evolution, and distribution of the primary Fe-rich phase in an Al–Mg–Si–Cu–Zn–Fe–Mn alloy are coupling controlled by ultrasonic melt treatment (USMT) and thermomechanical processing (TMP). It is shown in the results that the size of grains and Fe-rich phase in the as-cast state can be greatly reduced by the...

A Level Shifter With Almost Full Immunity to Positive dv/dt for Buck Converters

High-frequency buck converters need a fast transition of switching nodes (high dv/dt). Such high dv/dt, especially the positive one, can cause malfunction of a conventional pulse-triggered active-coupled (PTAC) level shifter that is used to control the high-side NMOS switch. In this work, we first discuss the dv/dt immunity of conventional PTAC...

A Single-Stage Regulating Voltage-Doubling Rectifier for Wireless Power Transfer

In this letter, a 6.78-MHz single-stage regulating voltage-doubling rectifier is presented for biomedical wireless power transfer (WPT) applications. Derived from a full-wave voltage doubler, a theoretical voltage conversion ratio (VCR) of 2 can be achieved, which benefits the end-to-end voltage gain of a biomedical WPT system with varying...

A 13.56MHz Fully Integrated 91.8% Efficiency Single-Stage Dual-Output Regulating Voltage Doubler for Biomedical Wireless Power Transfer

Dual-output regulating rectifier is highly desired in wireless power transfer (WPT) for sub-100mW bioimplants. Such rectifiers perform voltage rectification and dual-output regulation simultaneously, thus avoiding post DC-DC conversions and cascaded power losses [1 –4]. However, the conventional dual-output structure suffers from a low voltage...

Design and assessments on a hybrid pin fin-metal foam structure towards enhancing melting heat transfer: An experimental study

Solar energy, as a kind of renewable energy, offers a large reserve to be harvested at a reasonably low cost for engineering applications. To decouple the temporal and spatial relevance of the continuous energy supply of solar energy, latent heat thermal energy storage can deal with this problem at different temperatures. Aiming to improve...

A 6.78 MHz Dual-output Reconfigurable Rectifier with Hysteretic Output Regulation for Wireless Power Transfer Systems

A 6.78 MHz dual-output reconfigurable rectifier for wireless power transfer is presented. The proposed rectifier integrates AC-DC rectification and DC-DC regulation into a single-stage topology, alleviating received power loss and reducing system volume cost. By adding a switch matrix after rectifying bridge, a dual output can be realized and...

Effect of filler on performance of porous asphalt pavement using multiscale finite element method

Porous asphalt (PA) pavements are widely employed in areas with wet climates. As particle enhancement inclusions in asphalt mastic, mineral fillers play essential roles in improving the performance of PA pavements. This study developed a coupled multiscale finite element (FE) model, involving the mesostructure of PA mixture and PA pavement....

Asymmetric Excitation of Surface Plasmon Polaritons via Paired Slot Antennas for Angstrom Displacement Sensing

Optical antennas enable efficient coupling between propagating light and bonding electromagnetic waves like surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Under the illumination of inhomogeneous optical fields, propagating SPPs mediated by multimode antennas could be spatially asymmetric and the asymmetry strongly depends on the position of the antennas...

Plasma nitriding induced growth of Pt-nanowire arrays as high performance electrocatalysts for fuel cells

In this work, we demonstrate an innovative approach, combing a novel active screen plasma (ASP) technique with green chemical synthesis, for a direct fabrication of uniform Pt nanowire arrays on large-area supports. The ASP treatment enables in-situ N-doping and surface modification to the support surface, significantly promoting the uniform...