Contacting mode operation of work function energy harvester

The work function energy harvester (WFEH) is a variable capacitance vibration energy harvester where the charging of the capacitor electrodes is driven by the work function difference of the electrode materials. In this work, we investigate operation modes of the WFEH by utilizing a macroscopic parallel plate capacitor with Cu and Al electrodes and varying plate distance. We show that by charging the electrodes of the WFEH by letting the electrode plates touch during the operation a significant output power enhancement can be achieved in comparison to the case where the electrodes are charged and discharged only through a load resistor.