Any equipment that transmits Wi-Fi signal emits terahertz waves as well. Terahertz waves are electronic waves that come with a frequency lying somewhere between infrared light and microwaves. These radiation waves of high frequency are known as “T-rays”. These rays are produced by any temperature-registering device, which even includes human bodies and non-living things that surround us.
Terahertz waves are found all around us and if these waves are harnessed then that power could serve as an alternative source of energy. However, until today, energy from these waves are wasted as there has been no effective method to convert it into any useful form
Direct Current to be Produced from Ambient Energy to Power Household Electronics
Over the last decade, several researchers have been looking for avenues to harvest and then convert the surrounding energy into a useful form of electrical energy. Efforts have been made to generate electrical energy by capturing and converting energy from our surroundings through the use of rectifiers. Rectifiers refer to those types of equipment that are made to derive direct current from the electromagnetic waves of their alternating or oscillating current.
Now a team of physicists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a blueprint for a gadget. The physicists working on it strongly believe that it will be able to produce direct current from the surrounding terahertz waves. Direct current refers to a type of electricity that provides power to most of the electronics used in households.
The design of the device makes utilization of the atomic or quantum mechanical behavior of the carbon material containing graphene. The physicists discovered that by mixing graphene with other material, for instance, boron nitride, in this case, the electrons present in graphene would direct their motion toward one particular direction. Any incoming terahertz waves would then shuttle electrons of graphene to make way through the object in one particular direction, in the form of direct current.
The physicists have published their research in the journal Science Advances. They are relentlessly working with experimentalists to convert their design into a device that would actually do the job
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