Kandala Averal N, Wang Sinan, Blecha Joseph E, Wang Yung-Hua, Lall Rahul K, Niknejad Ali M, Seo Youngho, Evans Michael J, Flavell Robert R, VanBrocklin Henry F, Anwar Mekhail
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA.
iScience. 2024 Dec 25;28(1):111686. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111686. eCollection 2025 Jan 17.
The storage and generation of electrical energy at the mm-scale is a core roadblock to realizing many untethered miniature systems, including industrial, environmental, and medically implanted sensors. We describe the potential to address the sensor energy requirement in a two-step process by first converting alpha radiation into light, which can then be translated into electrical power through a photovoltaic harvester circuit protected by a clear sealant. Different phosphorescent and scintillating materials were mixed with the alpha-emitter Th-227, and the conversion efficiency of europium-doped yttrium oxide was the highest at around 2%. Measurements of the light generated by this phosphor when combined with Th-227 reveal that over 100 nW of optical power can be expected at volumes around 1 mm over more than two months. The use of a clear sealant, together with the evaporation of liquid solution following the mixture, can enable safe miniaturization for size-constrained medical and internet-of-things (IoT) sensor applications.
在毫米尺度上存储和产生电能是实现许多无束缚微型系统的核心障碍，这些系统包括工业、环境和医疗植入传感器。我们描述了通过两步过程满足传感器能量需求的潜力，首先将α辐射转化为光，然后通过由透明密封剂保护的光伏收集器电路将光转化为电能。将不同的磷光和闪烁材料与α发射体钍-227混合，掺铕氧化钇的转换效率最高，约为2%。当这种磷光体与钍-227结合时，对其产生的光的测量表明，在两个多月的时间里，在体积约为1毫米的情况下，可以预期超过100纳瓦的光功率。透明密封剂的使用，以及混合后液体溶液的蒸发，可以实现尺寸受限的医疗和物联网（IoT）传感器应用的安全小型化。
