Self-Powered Piezoelectric Wireless Switch (Energy Harvesting and Storage Europe 2011)

Venkatesh Sivasubramaniam holds a Master degree in Physics from Sri Sathya Sai University, India. In 2003, he was awarded the scholarship from Swedish funding for technology and research to pursue his second Masters Degree in Material Physics and Nanotechnology at Linköping University, Sweden. His Master thesis was performed at the Interuniversity Microelectronics Research Center located in Belgium, on modeling Nanosensors for mass sensing applications. On successful completion, he moved to Switzerland for his Doctoral Thesis at Swiss Federal University of Technology (ETH) at Lausanne from 2005-2009. His study focused on Microstrucutral and mechanical properties of Nano composite solder materials. After successfully graduating he joined ALGRA AG as a Material scientist. Since two years he has been focusing to understand and optimize the piezoelectric composite materials for keyboard based applications. He is also actively involved in realizing the self-powered piezoelectric switch for wireless applications.

ALGRA is one of the world's leading manufacturers of custom-made printed plates, panels and input systems. The company specializes in keyboards based on the piezoelectric effect. Decades of experience, patented technologies, modern production facilities and thrive for perfection make ALGRA a unique partner for companies with exceeding demand in function, durability and design.

 

ALGRA offers two different technologies for piezoelectric-based input systems: Dynapic® and Dynasim®. Both technologies enable to mass-produce vandal-resistant keyboards that can withstand more than ten million switching cycles. The keyboards are extremely slim and have homogeneous surfaces with an attractive appearance thanks to a wide choice of applicable material, such as metal, glass, polymers and more.