Milestone reached in wireless electricity by Korean researchers

Experiments on streaming electricity wirelessly have been underway for over half-a-century but a new milestone has been reached last week when South Korean scientists successfully achieved it across a room through thin air. The could transmit 400 megawatts of electricity over nearly 100 feet using infrared laser light.

The research has been published in the journal Optics Express.

“The ability to power devices wirelessly could eliminate the need to carry around power cables for our phones or tablets. It could also power various sensors such as those used for monitoring processes in manufacturing plants,” said research team leader Jinyong Ha from Sejong University.

Four hundred MW is just enough power to charge small sensors but paves the way for larger amounts of power being able to be sent wirelessly gradually increasing the distance, possibly to charge mobile phones.

Currently, wireless charging over very small distances has been possible mostly for mobile phones and it is based on inductive charging, where a copper coil generates a magnetic field that facilitates the movement of a charge from the charging pad into the phone’s battery.

Using laser charging, the new method allows it at distances over 98 feet and provides “safe high-power illumination with less light loss.”

“While most other approaches require the receiving device to be in a special charging cradle or to be stationary, distributed laser charging enables self-alignment without tracking processes as long as the transmitter and receiver are in the line of sight of each other,” Ha said. “It also automatically shifts to a safe low power delivery mode if an object or a person blocks the line of sight.”

“The ability to power devices wirelessly could eliminate the need to carry around power cables for our phones or tablets,” research team leader Jinyong Ha from Sejong University in South Korea said in a statement. “It could also power various sensors such as those used for monitoring processes in manufacturing plants.”

“Using the laser charging system to replace power cords in factories could save on maintenance and replacement costs,” Ha said. “This could be particularly useful in harsh environments where electrical connections can cause interference or pose a fire hazard.”