We demonstrate a reconfigurable metamaterial developed by surface micromachining technique on a low loss quartz substrate for a tunable terahertz filter application. The device implements a reconfigurable RF-MEMS (radio frequency – micro electro mechanical systems) capacitor within a split-ring resonator (SRR). Time-domain spectroscopy confirms that the tunability of the SRR resonance and thus the terahertz transmittance are electrostatically controlled by the RF-MEMS capacitor. Due to the high transparency and low loss of quartz used as a substrate, the device exhibits a high contrast switching performance of 16.5 dB at 480 GHz, which is also supported by the terahertz dynamic modulation measurement results. The device shows promise for tunable transmission terahertz optics.

In this paper, we look into the fundamental mechanism to retrieve the power from physical vibrations by using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) energy harvesters. An analytical model is presented for the velocity-damped resonant generator (VDRG) that delivers electrical power through the power enhancement mechanism using the mechanical resonance of a suspended mass. Deliverable power is also analytically discussed with respect to the theoretical limit, and a view to understand the VDRG behaviors is presented in association with the impedance matching condition and the quality factors. Mechano-electric power conversions including electrostatic induction, electromagnetic induction, and piezoelectric effect are discussed to study the scaling effect. Recent examples of MEMS VDRGs are reviewed and evaluated in terms of the power density.

Near-field radiative heat transfer has been a subject of great interest due to the applicability to thermal management and energy conversion. In this letter, a submicron gap between a pair of diced fused quartz substrates is formed by using micromachined low-density pillars to obtain both the parallelism and small parasitic heat conduction. The gap uniformity is validated by the optical interferometry at four corners of the substrates. The heat flux across the gap is measured in a steady-state and is no greater than twice of theoretically predicted radiative heat flux, which indicates that the parasitic heat conduction is suppressed to the level of the radiative heat transfer or less. The heat conduction through the pillars is modeled, and it is found to be limited by the thermal contact resistance between the pillar top and the opposing substrate surface. The methodology to form and evaluate the gap promotes the near-field radiative heat transfer to various applications such as thermal rectification, thermal modulation, and thermophotovoltaics.

Despite the development of energy-efficient devices in various applications, microelectromechanical system (MEMS) electrostatic actuators yet require high voltages to generate large displacements. In this respect, electrets exhibiting quasi-permanent electrical charges allow large fixed voltages to be integrated directly within electrode structures to reduce or eliminate the need of DC bias electronics. For verification, a $-40\mathrm{V}$ biased electret layer was fabricated at the inner surface of a silicon on insulator (SOI) structure facing a 2 μm gap owing to the high compatibility of silicon micromachining and the potassium-ion-electret fabrication method. A $-10\mathrm{V}$ electret-augmented actuator with an out-of-plane motion membrane reached a sound pressure level (SPL) of 50 dB maximum with AC input voltage of $V_{in}=5 {\mathrm{V}}_{\mathrm{pp}}$ alone, indicating a potential for acoustic transducer usage such as microspeakers. Such devices with electret biasing require only the input signal voltage, thus contributing to reducing the overall power consumption of the device system.

A charging model is proposed for an electret film made of potassium-ion-doped SiO₂ that can be formed between the two opposing micro-electrodes of a micro-electrostatic actuator, separated by a microscopic gap. On the basis of experimental evidence that charging only occurs in the positively biased electrode during the charging process and that the charging polarity is negative, we assumed that the cause of the electret charges is negatively charged oxygen ions residing in the SiO₂ film, which arise as a consequence of potassium ion depletion. This assumption was supported by SIMS (Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy) analyses that indicate the presence of a depletion region of potassium ions near the interface of the silicon and the oxide film on the positively biased electrode. Calculations of the charged potential using Poisson’s equation with the spatially distributed negative charges in the depletion region showed good agreement with the measured surface potential. It appears that our charging model can consistently elucidate potassium ion electret technology.

We have developed a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) electrostatic vibratory power generator with over 100 $\mathsf{\mu }$ W ${}_{\mathrm{RMS}}$ of (root-mean-square) output electric power under 0.03 G ${}_{\mathrm{RMS}}$ (G: the acceleration of gravity) accelerations. The device is made of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer and is fabricated by silicon micromachining technology. An electret built-in potential is given to the device by electrothermal polarization in silicon oxide using potassium ions. The force factor, which is defined by a proportional coefficient of the output current with respect to the vibration velocity, is 2.34 × 10 ${}^{-4}$ C/m; this large value allows the developed vibration power generator to have a very high power efficiency of 80.7%. We have also demonstrated a charging experiment by using an environmental acceleration waveform with an average amplitude of about 0.03 G ${}_{\mathrm{RMS}}$ taken at a viaduct of a highway, and we obtained 4.8 mJ of electric energy stored in a 44 $\mathsf{\mu }$ F capacitor in 90 min.