Phys.org February 28, 2022
Researchers at the South Florida University have demonstrated a high-efficiency RF energy harvesting device based on a metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA). With the embedded Schottky diodes, the MPA-based rectenna converts captured RF waves to DC power. The Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity resonance of the MPA greatly improved the amount of energy captured. The FP resonance exhibited a high Q-factor and significantly increased the voltage across the Schottky diodes, which improved the rectification efficiency, particularly at low intensity. This led to a factor of 16 improvement of RF-DC conversion efficiency at ambient intensity level. According to the researchers MPA-based rectenna can obtain 100 μW power for an incident intensity of 0.4µW/cm2. This technology could potentially provide wireless power to sensors, LEDs and other simple devices with low energy requirements...read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Efficiency at low intensity… Credit: Optical Materials Express Vol. 12, Issue 3, pp. 1242-1250 (2022)Â