Capacitive Transducers

• Published in: Electrostatic Kinetic Energy Harvesting pp. 7 - 25
• Main Authors: Galayko, Dimitri, Basset, Philippe, Blokhina, Elena
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated 2016; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: capacitance variation; capacitive transducers; energy conversion; mechanical energy; microelectromechanical system
• ISBN: 1848217161; 9781848217164
• DOI: 10.1002/9781119007487.ch2

Widespread use of capacitive transducers has become possible because of the miniaturization of electronic systems. Indeed, capacitive transducers are inefficient at macroscale, so capacitive transducers are mainly implemented with silicon‐based microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technologies. Capacitive transducers are used either as sensors or actuators for the transfer of information between the mechanical and electrical domains. This chapter presents some basic information describing capacitive transducers used as converter of mechanical energy into electricity. A capacitor behaves as an electrical element when its two electrodes have different electrical charges. The work of the force generated by the capacitive transducer represents the energy transferred between the mechanical and the electrical domains. In order to analyze the energy conversion of the transducer, the capacitance variation should be known, but the mechanical dynamics of the system are strongly affected by the electrical operation of the transducer, especially when the energy conversion is to be maximized.