Bio-inspired magnetically triggered snap-through mechanism for enhanced mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion

This work proposes a bionic excitation strategy in which the impact force harvested by magnetic snap-through instability directly acts on the triboelectric substrate film, thereby significantly enhancing the power output of the bio-inspired energy harvester (BEH). Unlike traditional compression-driven TENGs, the impulsive stress loading shortens the single-pulse force response by approximately 50 ms, as confirmed by synchronized real-time time–voltage measurements. The rapid stress transition leads to a faster transient electrical response and contributes to increased charge output. As a result, the overall BEH achieves a 127% increase in total power output, a 161.5% increase in TENG power output, and a 126.5% increase in PET power output compared with traditional harvesters. These findings demonstrate that bionic abrupt-transition mechanisms can overcome the intrinsic limitations of low-frequency(<30hz) harvesters and unlock higher energy conversion efficiency. Furthermore, the BEH enables wireless temperature and humidity sensing, highlighting its potential for self-powered IoT applications. Overall, this work establishes a generalizable impulsive-excitation paradigm that breaks existing performance bottlenecks and advances the development of next-generation high-efficiency energy harvesting systems.