The world’s smallest wind turbine that could one day
power portable electronics and recharge smartphone batteries. The micro-windmill is
so small that 10 such windmills could be mounted on a single grain of
rice. The device is about 1.8 mm at its widest point. Rao, along with
J.C. Chiao, a professor of electrical engineering at UT, developed the
technology based on recent advances inmicro-robotic devices.
“Hundreds of the windmills could be embedded in a sleeve for a cell
phone,” the researcher claimed. “Wind, created by waving the cell phone
in air or holding it up to an open window on a windy day, would generate
the electricity that could be collected by the cell phone’s battery.”
The MEMS-based nickel alloy windmill “blend origami concepts into
conventional wafer-scale semiconductor device layouts so complex 3-D
moveable mechanical structures can be self-assembled from
two-dimensional metal pieces utilising planar multi-layer electroplating
techniques.” The micro windmills were tested successfully in September 2013 in
Chiao’s lab. The windmills operate under strong artificial winds without
any fracture in the material because of the durable nickel alloy and
smart aerodynamic design. “The problem most MEMS designers have is that materials are too
brittle,” Rao said. “With the nickel alloy, we don’t have that same
issue. They’re very, very durable.”
“Imagine that they can be cheaply made on the surfaces of portable
electronics,” Chiao said, “so you can place them on a sleeve for your
smart phone. When the phone is out of battery power, all you need to do
is to put on the sleeve, wave the phone in the air for a few minutes and
you can use the phone again.”
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