RF energy harvesting using carbon nanotube components

This thesis investigates the feasibility of a RF energy harvester using carbon-nanotube (CNT) transistors. The Cockcroft-Walton (CW) multiplier, a passive voltage multiplier topology, is chosen to turn AC RF energy into a usable DC voltage. This topology is first analyzed by hand in order to develop intuition behind multiplier operation and to guide multiplier design. While the CW multiplier has been studied previously, many analyses have neglected the effects of non-zero source resistance, non-zero switch resistance, and switch parasitic capacitance. In contrast, this thesis analyzes the CW multiplier in detail and develops a quick and simple way to design CW multipliers for use in a RF energy harvester. The completed circuit analysis is used to guide the design of a 3-stage CW multiplier that uses CNT FETs having a gate length of 5 um and a channel width of 1 mm. The antenna input source is modeled as an AC Thevenin voltage source with an output impedance of 50 [omega].

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Chen, Daibo,M. Eng.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jeffrey H. Lang.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123712

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123712