Power generation and shunt damping performance of a single crystal lead magnesium niobate-lead zirconate titanate unimorph: Analysis and experiment

Abstract

This letter investigates the power generation and shunt damping performance of the single crystal piezoelectric ceramic lead magnesium niobate–lead zirconate titanate (PMN-PZT) analytically and experimentally. PMN-PZT is a recently developed interface for energy harvesting and shunt damping with its large piezoelectric constant (−2252 pm/V) and coupling coefficient (0.95) for the transverse piezoelectric mode. A unimorph PMN-PZT cantilever with an aluminum substrate is tested under base excitation and its electromechanical response is predicted with a coupled distributed parameter model. The power generation performance of the device is 138 μW/(g2 cm3) at 1744 Hz, causing 84% tip vibration attenuation due to the resistive shunt damping effect.