Chances are, you don't think a whole lot about
the charger you use to power up your phone, your laptop, or electric
toothbrush.
You plug it in, it clobbers your gadget with
electronics and a little while later, you got a full charge.
Simple, right?
Well, it turns out that the electronics industry is
very interested in making a fundamental change to charging technology.
To be specific, they're looking at moving away
from conventional silicon and switching to a new material called Gallium Nitride.
But why would they stop using something so tried
and true?
So, like other electronics, chargers contain
semiconductors, like silicon, that control current flow.
And a semiconductor is a material that allows
some electricity to flow, but not tons of it, hence the name.
However, not all semiconductors are the same and
one of the main ways that they differ from each other is in something called a
Band gap.
All a band gap is an energy range where no
electrons can exist.
Gallium Nitride's band gap is nearly triple that
of silicon's, meaning it can conduct electrons at higher voltages but the band
gap isn't so high that it turns it into an insulator which can't conduct electrons
very well at all.
Because Gallium Nitride chargers can use high
voltages, they can conduct electrons about 1,000 times more efficiently than
silicon chargers can.
This efficiency gives them a few distinct
advantages that are relevant to you and me.
One:
You can make a charger quite a bit smaller.
So instead of having a phone charger that blocks
the other outlets, or a laptop brick that weighs down your backpack, you'll
have an efficient Gallium Nitride charger that can push a high number of watts.
Two:
You might see chargers that are a little more
versatile, as the more efficient nature of Gallium Nitride means that it'll be easier
to make chargers that can charge multiple devices at once or incorporate additional
features such as multiple plugs for different countries, without taking up a
ton of space.
Three:
They should eventually be cheaper.
Currently, the few Gallium Nitride chargers that
exist on the market are more expensive than their silicon counterparts, since
silicon is so widely available.
Plus, they're subject to the dreaded early
adopter tax, like most new electronics.
However, because Gallium Nitride is so much more
efficient, manufacturers won't need as much of it to construct a charger, which
will drive costs down to the point that they might be less expensive on average
than today's silicon chargers.
And it's not like Gallium Nitride is a completely
unknown material that we can't manufacture in large quantities.
Indeed, it actually started being used in a large
scale in LED lights, way back in the 1990s.
You also won't need a device that's specifically
compatible with a Gallium Nitride charger to take advantage of these benefits. Thank
God.
And if you're a fan of fast charging, Gallium Nitride
will be especially important, as its higher efficiency will allow fast charging
to be deployed to more devices.
Of course, it might be a while before we see
Gallium Nitride chargers become just as common as silicon-based ones, but you
can grab one today if you're willing to spend a little more money.
Some current chargers can push as much as 100
watts.
So they might be worth it if you often need high
capacity charging, but find yourself fighting space limits, like if you're that
guy hogging every outlet inside the airport terminal.
So that was all in todays post, how you liked
this one and do let us know in the Comments section if you did. Also share your
suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.
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