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Researchers have built a metamaterial device that captures microwaves and turns them into electrical power.
Metamaterials are made up of structures that are smaller than a given wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. When arranged in arrays, these structures can tune waves of that radiation in novel ways. Allen Hawkes and his colleagues at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, used an array of five metamaterial cells, made from split copper circuits, to harvest microwave energy.
The microwaves cause an oscillating current in the material, and the copper circuits convert part of that current into usable power. When high-power microwaves were applied, the array produced enough direct current to charge a mobile phone.
Such a material could one day be built into devices and generate power by picking up energy from a mobile phone or Wi-Fi signals, the authors say.
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Device harvests power from the air. Nature 505, 457 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/505457f
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/505457f
