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Wirelessly powered large-area electronics for the Internet of Things

Nature Electronics volume 6, pages 10–17 (2023)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 24 January 2023

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Abstract

Powering the increasing number of sensor nodes used in the Internet of Things creates a technological challenge. The economic and sustainability issues of battery-powered devices mean that wirelessly powered operation—combined with environmentally friendly circuit technologies—will be needed. Large-area electronics—which can be based on organic semiconductors, amorphous metal oxide semiconductors, semiconducting carbon nanotubes and two-dimensional semiconductors—could provide a solution. Here we examine the potential of large-area electronics technology in the development of sustainable, wirelessly powered Internet of Things sensor nodes. We provide a system-level analysis of wirelessly powered sensor nodes, identifying the constraints faced by such devices and highlighting promising architectures and design approaches. We then explore the use of large-area electronics technology in wirelessly powered Internet of Things sensor nodes, with a focus on low-power transistor circuits for digital processing and signal amplification, as well as high-speed diodes and printed antennas for data communication and radiofrequency energy harvesting.

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Fig. 1: LAE sensor nodes for sustainable IoT.
Fig. 2: System view of wirelessly powered sensor nodes.
Fig. 3: Ultralow-power LAEs.
Fig. 4: High-speed diodes for radiofrequency energy harvesting.

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Data availability

Data associated with the original plots presented in this article (Figs. 2d,e, 3a,b and 4) are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Frontier Institute of Chip and System, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Luis Portilla

  2. KAUST Solar Center (KSC), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Kalaivanan Loganathan, Hendrik Faber & Thomas D. Anthopoulos

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Aline Eid

  4. Atheraxon Inc., Atlanta, GA, USA

    Jimmy G. D. Hester

  5. Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Manos M. Tentzeris

  6. Integrated Circuits Group, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Marco Fattori & Eugenio Cantatore

  7. Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Chen Jiang

  8. Darwin College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Arokia Nathan

  9. Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Gianluca Fiori

  10. Computational Sustainability Research Group (CSRG), WMG, The University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Taofeeq Ibn-Mohammed

  11. School of Sustainable Energy Engineering, Simon Fraser University, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

    Vincenzo Pecunia

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  1. Luis Portilla
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Correspondence to Thomas D. Anthopoulos or Vincenzo Pecunia.

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Portilla, L., Loganathan, K., Faber, H. et al. Wirelessly powered large-area electronics for the Internet of Things. Nat Electron 6, 10–17 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00898-5

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