A 20mV Rectifier for Boosting Internet of Natural Things (IoNT)

Internet of Natural Things (loNT) is a new paradigm coming from IoT that enable Natural Things, as trees, to be connected to the Internet. However, to embed electronic in natural trees is a challenge since the use of chemical batteries is not a reasonable solution. For this, Energy Harvesting, that is, the conversion of ambient energy present in the environment into usable electrical energy, is a very interesting solution, but the low level of generated energy from the ambient energy causes the necessity to develop low-power and low-voltage circuits. A very frequently circuit need in this context is the rectifier since a lot of energy sources generate alternate voltage. In this paper, a 20mV MOSFET-based rectifier based on Latour detector and on Zero-Threshold transistor is introduced. A discrete prototype of the rectifier has been made and experimental results confirm its low-voltage operation when the input voltage supply is about 20 mV or even lower.