[Energy Harvesting] Scientific Innovation for Energy Harvesting Technology

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Strategic Objective

Elucidation of basic principles for innovative energy conversion, and synthesis of new materials, development of new energy harvesting devices, and other core technologies, that will contribute to the high-efficiency conversion of ambient microenergy into electricity and their new advanced applications

Research Supervisor

Kenji Taniguchi（Specially Appointed Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University)

Deputy Research Supervisor

Hiroyuki Akinaga（Principal Research Manager, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)）

Outline

The aim of this Research Area is to create innovative core technologies for converting heat, light, vibration, electromagnetic field, biological body, and other types of ambient microenergy into electricity in the range of µW～mW for use in self-powered sensors, microprocessors, and other types of devices.

More specifically, research will be promoted along two principal lines. One will focus on the development of core technologies and their underlying basic principles, for the highly efficient conversion of ambient microenergy produced from heat, light, vibration, electromagnetic, biological body, and other forms of energy sources. This is research that will develop substances and devices to convert untapped microenergy into electricity based on the new principles. It will be the challenge of discovering new principles contributing to innovative energy conversion such as that utilizing spin correlations or topological correlated phases and developing new materials with physical properties far surpassing the characteristics of substances to date. The other principal line of research will be on theories, analytical evaluation, and material design for developing the core technologies mentioned above. This research will attempt to develop new analytic formulations for the physical phenomena (properties of materials and interfaces, transport phenomena, etc.) that come into play in energy conversion, and will put forth guidelines for new-material design based on condensed matter physics or applying computer simulation. It is extremely important to pursue these two principal lines of research in closely collaborative and mutually complementary ways.

Accordingly, this Research Area calls for highly challenging proposals, which pursue to produce innovative principles, substances and devices to be tested and verified in their final stages, and which will lead to follow-on research and development stages.

This Research Area, therefore, will be an integrated CREST/PRESTO where work will be pursued under the strong leadership of the Research Supervisor and Deputy Research Supervisor, and efforts will be made to reorganize research teams, coordinate research programs, and promote strong communication among researchers pursuing different themes, all for the maximization of research achievements.

【PRESTO HP】　PRESTO ： Scientific Innovation for Energy Harvesting Technology

Research Area Advisors

・Toshiaki Aoai
Advisor, MURAKAMI CO.,LTD.

・Hideo Ohno
Professor, Director, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University (~ March 2018)

・Eiji Saitoh
Professor, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo

・Naoki Shinohara
Professor, Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere Kyoto University

・Kenji Shiraishi
Professor, Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability Nagoya University

・Mariko Takayanagi
Expert, Technology Planning Division, Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation

・Keiji Takeuchi
Senior Manager, Socio & Eco Strategic Consulting Unit NTT Data Institute of Management Consulting, Inc.

・Hiroyuki Fujita
Specially-appointed Professor, Advanced Research Laboratories, Tokyo City University

・Hiroshi Funakubo
Professor, School of Materials and Chemical Technology, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology

・Kenjiro Miyano
Fellow, National Institute for Materials Science

・Yuka Yamada
Assistant Director General, Department of Information Technology and Human Factors, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

Step-up evaluation

In this area, the research period is divided into two phases: the first half one to research the creation of more basic science and technology, and the second to tackle the verification and demonstration of new principles, new materials and new devices.
Based on the fundamental science and technology created in the first half phase, research teams and researchers inside and outside the domain (CREST, PRESTO cooperates) mutually cooperated and submitted research proposals for the latter phase with a new team structure. The following teams have been accepted after the step-up evaluation.
As a “valuable fundamental research”, we will work to develop and strengthen with a view to leading to cooperation with the industry.

Step-up evaluation adopted research teams: 2019
Step-up evaluation adopted research teams: 2020
Step-up evaluation adopted research teams: 2021

Year Started : 2015

Creation of Innovative Material and Mechanism for Magnetostrictive Vibration Based Power Generator for Practical Applications

Research Director:
Toshiyuki Ueno(Associate Professor, Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Institute of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University)

Development of materials with low thermal conductivity and high electrical conductivity based on the orbital/charge fluctuation of electrons

Research Director:
Takuro Katsufuji(Professor, Department of Physics, Waseda University)

Development of Innovative Electret Material for High-output-power Energy Harvesting

Research Director:
Yuji Suzuki(Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo)

Electret MEMS Vibrational Triboelectric Generation

Research Director:
Hiroshi Toshiyoshi(Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo)

From understanding of topological electronic structure toward development of basic technology for energy harvesting

Research Director:
Satoru Nakatsuji(Professor, Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo)

Development of novel magnetic semiconductor thermoelectric materials and power generation devices

Research Director:
Takao Mori(Principal Investigator, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (WPI-MANA), National Institute for Materials Science)

Development of Silicon-Based Thermoelectric Device Utilizing Computational Phononics

Research Director:
Takanobu Watanabe(Professor, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University)

Year Started : 2016

Scavenging nW RF energy using Super Steep Transistor and Meta-Material Antenna

Research Director:
Koichiro Ishibashi(Professor, Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications)

Electric power generation by flow of electrolyte solution with ultra-thin film materials

Research Director:
Yutaka Ohno(Professor, Institute of Materials and Systems for Sustainability, Nagoya University)

Development of ambient RF energy-harvesting devices using semiconductor nanowires

Research Director:
Kenichi Kawaguchi(Research Manager, Mobile Systems Business Unit, FUJITSU LIMITED)

Development of high-efficient piezoelectric MEMS energy harvesters composed of polarization-controlled lead-free piezoelectric thin films

Research Director:
Isaku Kanno(Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kobe University)

Development of multifunctional and purpose thermoelectric device by mechano-thermal functionalization

Research Director:
Junichiro Shiomi(Professor, School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo)

Development of thermoelectric materials by use of synergetic effect of rattling and lone-pairs

Research Director:
Chul-Ho Lee(Research Group Leader, Research Institute for Energy Conservation, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)