Focused Microwaves Could Enable Wireless Power Transfer

esocid alerts us to news out of the University of Michigan, where physics researchers have found a way to focus microwaves to a point 20 times smaller than their wavelength using a new 'superlens'. Such resolution was thought to be impossible until recent years, and it could bring about the capability to transfer power wirelessly. "No matter how powerful a conventional lens, it cannot focus light down to more than about half its wavelength, the 'diffraction limit'. This limits the amount of data that can be stored on a CD, and the size of features on computer chips. The new lens is a 127-micrometer-thick plate of teflon and ceramic with a copper topping. 'The beauty of these is that they're planar,' Grbic says, 'they're easy to fabricate.' The lenses can be made through a single step of photolithography, the process used to etch computer chips."

Ant colonies, beware!

[Bob(TM)]

What is it with geeks and magnifying glasses?

Re:We tried that

[Kuukai]

I know what you mean, messing with wireless power is a seriously bad idea. Tesla tried it too, and look what happened to him. He's DEAD!

Never mind the power thing

[jd]

If the limits on a CD are because of conventional lenses, and this can get 10 times the best a lens can do, it follows that a superlens-based CD, DVD or Blu-Ray system could get 10 times the capacity per track and 10 times as many tracks (in other words, 100 times the capacity). That would be some serious storage space.

Re:Ant colonies, beware!

[somersault]

We're just trying to work out all the bugs :p

Slight Problem?

[Plekto]

Current proposed methods for space-based power transmission mean you need a several mile wide area to collect the energy. OTOH, it would be fairly safe. Like a day at the beach. You might get a sunburn but not much else unless you lived right in the path of the beam. And any hard surface, glass, or sunblock would negate almost all of it. But you need a really large area.

The downside of this, obviously, is that if the beam is made twenty times smaller, you would only need a half mile array of collectors, but anything caught underneath it would be fried in a few minutes. (do the math - 20x smaller is several orders of magnitude more powerful - like using a magnifying glass pointed at the sun at half an inch diameter versus a small dot)

Let's hope the aim never gets off.

Re:Never mind the power thing

[dgatwood]

And in 10 years when the price of the media drops to the point of affordability, 5 terabytes will still be too small to back up your hard drive without using a hundred of them.... :-)

Re:We tried that

[WaltBusterkeys]

Didn't we try this in Sim City? Look how well that worked out.

Re:We tried that

[NeverVotedBush]

I don't see how it is that different from burning carbon-based fuels or running nuclear power plants. Both of those release heat energy back into the atmosphere/biosphere as well.

Beaming the power in, where some of it (depending on efficiencies in transmission and use) would be turned into heat energy, would actually release less energy into the biosphere than nuclear or fossil fuels where the inefficiencies in power production itself, since it occurs in the biosphere, release additional heat energy.

Irradiation, perfect!

[node 3]

irradiation for people who think they aren't in the beam.

I don't see why this would be a problem. They can just make use of the irradiation. For example, they could shine the irradiation beam around Chernobyl and sop up all the radiation with the irradiation.

Re:You may have forgotten...

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Problem: my local public university was invaded by physics theorists and is now non-localized. Now what?

Re:Nothing new here; still not a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Firstly, it's horribly inefficient

Goodness knows we have to be careful about wasting sunlight. It should be conserved; I mean, that's what daylight savings time is about right?

Re:Nothing new here; still not a good idea

[bendodge]

But really! It's been done!
Wireless Extension Cords [thinkgeek.com]

Re:We tried that

[infonography]

Not just Tesla, think of all those poor birds, when they land on these wires it's instant fried sparrow.

In other news...

[LM741N]

Belden http://www.belden.com/ [belden.com] is selling wire.