Enhanced electromechanical coupling in piezoelectric MEMS vibration energy harvesters via strain-induced phase transition in Mn-doped bismuth ferrite epitaxial films

Abstract Mn-doped BiFeO 3 (BFMO) epitaxial films grown on (100) Si wafers delivered enhanced electrical and piezoelectric properties under systematically optimized growth conditions, realized through a biaxial combinatorial sputtering method. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss of the resulting BFMO films were approximately 140 and 1%, respectively, considerably lower than those of undoped BiFeO 3 . Most notably, the effective transverse piezoelectric coefficient was –6.0 C/m 2 , the highest yet reported for this material system. According to detailed structural and electrical characterizations, the improved piezoelectric performance stems from a strain-induced phase transition from the rhombohedral to the monoclinic structure. To demonstrate this enhancement beyond the material level, the optimized films were successfully integrated into piezoelectric MEMS vibration-energy harvesters. The films demonstrated device-level performance improvements with a generalized electromechanical coupling factor $$({K}^{2})$$ ( K 2 ) of 0.5%, fivefold that of (100) oriented BFO films.