Gonzalo Murillo

Electromechanical Nanogenerator–Cell Interaction Modulates Cell Activity

Noninvasive methods for in situ electrical stimulation of human cells open new frontiers to future bioelectronic therapies, where controlled electrical impulses could replace the use of chemical drugs for disease treatment. Here, this study demonstrates that the interaction of living cells with piezoelectric nanogenerators (NGs) induces a local electric field that self-stimulates and modulates their cell activity, without applying an additional chemical or physical external stimulation. When cells are cultured on top of the NGs, based on 2D ZnO nanosheets, the electromechanical NG-cell interactions stimulate the motility of macrophages and trigger the opening of ion channels present in the plasma membrane of osteoblast-like cells (Saos-2) inducing intracellular calcium transients. In addition, excellent cell viability, proliferation, and differentiation are validated. This in situ cell-scale electrical stimulation of osteoblast-like cells can be extrapolated to other excitable cells such as neurons or muscle cells, paving the way for future bioelectronic medicines based on cell-targeted electrical impulses.

Improving Morphological Quality and Uniformity of Hydrothermally Grown ZnO Nanowires by Surface Activation of Catalyst Layer

This paper presents a study about the dependence of the hydrothermal growth of ZnO nanowires (NWs) with the passivation level of the active surface of the Au catalyst layer. The hydrothermal method has many potential applications because of its low processing temperature, feasibility, and low cost. However, when a gold thin film is utilized as the seed material, the grown NWs often lack morphological homogeneity; their distribution is not uniform and the reproducibility of the growth is low. We hypothesize that the state or condition of the active surface of the Au catalyst layer has a critical effect on the uniformity of the NWs. Inspired by traditional electrochemistry experiments, in which Au electrodes are typically activated before the measurements, we demonstrate that such activation is a simple way to effectively assist and enhance NW growth. In addition, several cleaning processes are examined to find one that yields NWs with optimal quality, density, and vertical alignment. We find cyclic voltammetry measurements to be a reliable indicator of the seed-layer quality for subsequent NW growth. Therefore, we propose the use of this technique as a standard procedure prior to the hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO NWs to control the growth reproducibility and to allow high-yield wafer-level processing.

Novel optimized design of a piezoelectric energy harvester in a package for low amplitude vibrations

This paper presents a novel piezoelectric energy harvesting device created with the flip-chip bonding of two different parts, one is a MEMS die which plays the role of inertial mass and the other is an associate CMOS chip anchored to the vibrating environment. The flip-chip bonding is performed between the MEMS die, which consists of four piezoelectric beams connected to four PADs or anchor points, and a test PCB, which is used to validate the feasibility of the whole assembled system. The resulting system in package is a proof of concept of a novel design concept that increases the extracted power from an ambient vibration. FEM simulations have been carried out to study the mechanical behaviour of the who le system. Moreover, the fabrication of the piezoelectric die and the test PCB has been successfully performed, as well as their flip-chip integration.

Suspended Silicon Microphotodiodes for Electrochemical and Biological Applications

Local electric stimulation of tissues and cells has gained importance as therapeutic alternative in the treatment of many diseases. These alternatives aim to deliver a less invasively stimuli in liquid media, making imperative the development of versatile micro- and nanoscale solutions for wireless actuation. Here, a simple microfabrication process to produce suspended silicon microphotodiodes that can be activated by visible light to generate local photocurrents in their surrounding medium is presented. Electrical characterization using electrical probes confirms their diode behavior. To demonstrate their electrochemical performance, an indirect test is implemented in solution through photoelectrochemical reactions controlled by a white-LED lamp. Furthermore, their effects on biological systems are observed in vitro using mouse primary neurons in which the suspended microphotodiodes are activated periodically with white-LED lamp, bringing out observable morphological changes in neuronal processes. The results demonstrate a simplified and cost-effective wireless tool for photovoltaic current generation in liquid media at the microscale.

Vibration energy harvesting via parametrically-induced bistability

The dynamic response to white Gaussian noise of a bistable non-linear vibration energy harvester based on the repulsive electrostatic interaction between a microcantilever and an electrode has been theoretically studied. The cantilever-electrode system can be brought from a linear regime characterized by a quadratic potential, when cantilever is far from the electrode, to a non-linear bistable regime characterized by a quartic potential, when both elements are close enough. This distance parameter, which is commonly used to tune bistability, is unusually used here also to inject the energy to the system in the form of displacement noise. Thus, the widening and shifting to the low-frequency region of the response spectrum as well as the enhancement of the rms out-of-plane vibration of the cantilever are both demonstrated through this parametrically-induced bistability.

From materials to devices: Bottom-up integration of nanomaterials onto silicon microstructures for thermoelectric and piezoelectric applications

Energy autonomy keeps being one of the most desired enabling functionalities in the context of off-grid applications, such as continuous monitoring scenarios and distributed intelligence paradigms (Internet of Things, Trillion Sensors). SiNERGY, a European project (GA n° 604169) coordinated by IMB-CNM (CSIC) has focused on silicon and silicon friendly materials and technologies to explore energy harvesting and storage concepts for powering microsensors nodes. Harvesting energy, tapping into environmentally available sources may be a good solution to overcome the use of primary batteries. 10–100 microwatts per square centimeter power densities seem appropriate for many such applications. Specific thermoelectric and piezoelectric developments are reviewed.

SiNERGY, a project on energy harvesting and microstorage empowered by Silicon technologies

Internet of Things and Trillion Sensors are buzzwords illustrating the path towards the next grand paradigm: Smart Everywhere. In many of those realizations long term autonomy of sensor systems is a must to tackle different societal challenges and innovation scenarios. Microenergy autonomy solutions based on energy harvesting offer a promising way in which silicon technology and silicon friendly materials may play a decisive role.

Self-suspended vibration-driven energy harvesting chip for power density maximization

This work introduces a new concept to integrate energy-harvesting devices with the aim of improving their throughput, mainly in terms of scavenged energy density and frequency tunability. This concept, named energy harvester in package (EHiP), is focused on the heterogeneous integration of a MEMS die, dedicated to scavenging energy, with an auxiliary chip, which can include the control and power management circuitry, sensors and RF transmission capabilities. The main advantages are that the whole die can be used as an inertial mass and the chip area usage is optimized. Based on this concept, in this paper we describe the development and characterization of a MEMS die fully dedicated to harvesting mechanical energy from ambient vibrations through an electrostatic transduction. A test PCB has been fabricated to perform the assembly that allows measurement of the resonance motion of the whole system at 289 Hz. An estimated maximum generated power of around 11 μW has been obtained for an input vibration acceleration of ~10 m s−2 when the energy harvester operates in a constant-charge cycle for the best-case scenario. Therefore, a maximum scavenged power density of 0.85 mW cm−3 is theoretically expected for the assembled system. These results demonstrate that the generated power density of any vibration-based energy harvester can be significantly increased by applying the EHiP concept, which could become an industrial standard for manufacturing this kind of system, independently of the transduction type, fabrication technology or application.