Wafer-level fabrication of a triboelectric energy harvester

We present a wafer-level fabrication method for triboelectric energy harvester (TEH), which fabricates the TEH completely in batch fabrication process, without any manually assembly step. Finite element method (FEM) simulation was conducted to investigate the open-circuit potential distribution and short-circuit charge distribution. Experimental measurements show that this device can produce 235 mV peak voltage at the frequency of 30 Hz, under the 100 MΩ external resistance. Compared with previous TEHs, the proposed device can be batch fabricated in CMOS-compatible process and the reduced size allows it to be easily integrated with other electronic devices (e.g., keyboards).