Li Wenbo, Mercader Anthony, Cho Sung Kwon
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Micromachines (Basel). 2025 Mar 21;16(4):362. doi: 10.3390/mi16040362.
Piezoelectric acoustic energy harvesting within the human body has traditionally faced challenges due to insufficient energy levels for biomedical applications. Existing acoustic resonators are often much larger in size, making them impractical for microscale applications. This study investigates the use of acoustically oscillated microbubbles as energy-harvesting resonators. A comparative study was conducted to determine the energy harvested by a freestanding diaphragm and a diaphragm coupled with an oscillating microbubble. The experimental results demonstrated that incorporating a microbubble enabled the flexible piezoelectric diaphragm to harvest seven times more energy than the freestanding diaphragm. These findings were further validated using Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) measurements and stress calculations. Additional experiments with a phantom tissue tank confirmed the feasibility of this technology for biomedical applications. The results indicate that acoustically resonating microbubbles are a promising design for microscale acoustic energy-harvesting resonators in implantable biomedical devices.
传统上，由于用于生物医学应用的能量水平不足，人体内部的压电声能收集面临挑战。现有的声谐振器尺寸通常要大得多，这使得它们在微尺度应用中不切实际。本研究探讨了使用声学振荡微泡作为能量收集谐振器。进行了一项对比研究，以确定独立隔膜和与振荡微泡耦合的隔膜所收集的能量。实验结果表明，加入微泡后，柔性压电隔膜收集的能量比独立隔膜多七倍。使用激光多普勒振动计（LDV）测量和应力计算进一步验证了这些发现。在模拟组织水箱中进行的额外实验证实了该技术在生物医学应用中的可行性。结果表明，声学谐振微泡是植入式生物医学设备中微尺度声能收集谐振器的一种有前景的设计。
