Energy harvesting generators are attractive as inexhaustible replacements for batteries in low-power wireless electronic devices and have received increasing research interest in recent years. Ambient motion is one of the main sources of energy for harvesting, and a wide range of motion-powered energy harvesters have been proposed or demonstrated, particularly at the microscale. This paper reviews the principles and state-of-art in motion-driven miniature energy harvesters and discusses trends, suitable applications, and possible future developments.

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Energy Harvesting From Human and Machine Motion for Wireless Electronic Devices

In this paper, recent progress of phase change memory (PCM) is reviewed. The electrical and thermal properties of phase change materials are surveyed with a focus on the scalability of the materials and their impact on device design. Innovations in the device structure, memory cell selector, and strategies for achieving multibit operation and 3-D, multilayer high-density memory arrays are described. The scaling properties of PCM are illustrated with recent experimental results using special device test structures and novel material synthesis. Factors affecting the reliability of PCM are discussed.

Phase Change Memory

A diverse spectrum of technology drivers such as improved thermal barriers, higher efficiency thermoelectric energy conversion, phase-change memory, heat-assisted magnetic recording, thermal management of nanoscale electronics, and nanoparticles for thermal medical therapies are motivating studies of the applied physics of thermal transport at the nanoscale. This review emphasizes developments in experiment, theory, and computation in the past ten years and summarizes the present status of the field. Interfaces become increasingly important on small length scales. Research during the past decade has extended studies of interfaces between simple metals and inorganic crystals to interfaces with molecular materials and liquids with systematic control of interface chemistry and physics. At separations on the order of ∼1 nm, the science of radiative transport through nanoscale gaps overlaps with thermal conduction by the coupling of electronic and vibrational excitations across weakly bonded or rough interface...

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Nanoscale thermal transport. II. 2003–2012

Ambient energy harvesting has been in recent years the recurring object of a number of research efforts aimed at providing an autonomous solution to the powering of small-scale electronic mobile devices. Among the different solutions, vibration energy harvesting has played a major role due to the almost universal presence of mechanical vibrations. Here we propose a new method based on the exploitation of the dynamical features of stochastic nonlinear oscillators. Such a method is shown to outperform standard linear oscillators and to overcome some of the most severe limitations of present approaches. We demonstrate the superior performances of this method by applying it to piezoelectric energy harvesting from ambient vibration.

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Nonlinear energy harvesting.

A phase-change memory element with side-wall contacts is disclosed, which has a bottom electrode. A non-metallic layer is formed on the electrode, exposing the periphery of the top surface of the electrode. A first electrical contact is on the non-metallic layer to connect the electrode. A dielectric layer is on and covering the first electrical contact. A second electrical contact is on the dielectric layer. An opening is to pass through the second electrical contact, the dielectric layer, and the first electrical contact and preferably separated from the electrode by the non-metallic layer. A phase-change material is to occupy one portion of the opening, wherein the first and second electrical contacts interface the phase-change material at the side-walls of the phase-change material. A second non-metallic layer may be formed on the second electrical contact. A top electrode contacts the top surface of the outstanding terminal of the second electrical contact.

Phase-change memory

Fabrication and performance of MEMS-based piezoelectric power generator for vibration energy harvesting

A MEMS-based piezoelectric power generator array for vibration energy harvesting

Effects of si doping on the structural and electrical properties of Ge2Sb2Te5 films for phase change random access memory

Nitrogen-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) films for nonvolatile memories were prepared by reactive sputtering with a GST alloy target. Doped nitrogen content was determined by using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The crystallization behavior of the films was investigated by analyzing x-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Results show that nitrogen doping increases crystallization temperature, crystallization-activation energy, and phase transformation temperature from fcc to hexagonal (hex) structure. Doped nitrogen probably exists in the grain vacancies or grain boundaries and suppresses grain growth. The electrical properties of the films were studied by analyzing the optical band gap and the dependence of the resistivity on the annealing temperature. The optical band gap of the nitrogen-doped GST film is slightly larger than that of the pure GST film. Energy band theory is used to analyze the effect of doped nitrogen on electrical properties of GST films. Studies reveal that nitrogen doping increases resistivity and produces three relatively stable resistivity states in the plot of resistivity versus annealing temperature, which makes GST-based multilevel storage possible. Current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of the devices show that nitrogen doping increases the memory’s dynamic resistance, which reduces writing current from milliampere to microampere.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11664-005-0230-2.pdf

Nitrogen-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 films for nonvolatile memory

The characteristics of phase change memory devices in size of several micrometers and with pure Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST), N-doped GST, and Si-doped GST films were investigated and compared with each other The Si-doped GST device can perform SET and RESET cycles, even if the Si dopant is as small as 41 at % But the GST and N-doped GST device cannot perform the RESET process, though the SET state resistance of N-doped device is almost the same as that of Si-doped device and larger than that of GST device In order to explain this phenomenon, the electrical and DSC characteristics of three kinds of films were investigated Phase separation was found in Si-doped GST films The reason of the RESET ability of Si-doped GST devices is supposed to be the existence of rich Si phases which act as micro-heaters Thermal conduction simulations confirmed this supposition and indicate that the separated high resistance phase (rich Si phase) can heat the active volume of device efficiently and reduce the writing current largely

Bingchu Cai

Papers

Fabrication and performance of MEMS-based piezoelectric power generator for vibration energy harvesting

A MEMS-based piezoelectric power generator array for vibration energy harvesting

Effects of si doping on the structural and electrical properties of Ge2Sb2Te5 films for phase change random access memory

Nitrogen-doped Ge2Sb2Te5 films for nonvolatile memory

Si doping in Ge2Sb2Te5 film to reduce the writing current of phase change memory