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 Marin
Soljačić
Assistant Professor of Physics
Massachusettes Institute of Technology
Talk Title: Wireless Non-Radiative Energy Transfer
Abstract
The emerging vast acceptance of autonomous electronic devices (e.g.
radios, cell-phones, laptops, robots), which are currently being
powered by on-site conversion of chemical energy, justifies revisiting
the old dream of the pioneers of electrical applications (e.g.
Tesla, Edison): transporting electrical energy wirelessly;
where for optimal practicality, the energy transfer should be independent
of the details of the geometry of the space in which the scheme
is being used (e.g. of the exact position of the drain with respect
to the source, and whether there exists a direct line-of-sight
between the drain and the source.) Of course it is well known that
freely-radiative modes satisfy this requirement (making them very
suitable for information transfer), but they are not suitable
for powering remote devices, since most of the power ends up being
wasted into empty space.
In our work, we investigate whether, and to what extent, the unique
physical phenomenon of long lifetime resonant electro-magnetic states
can, with long-tailed bona-fide (non-radiative) modes, be used for
efficient energy transfer. Intuitively, if both the drain and the
source are resonant states of the same frequency with long lifetimes,
they should be able to exchange energy very efficiently, while interaction
with other environmental off-resonant objects could be negligible.
Of course, intricacies of the real world make this simple picture
significantly more complex. Nevertheless, via detailed theoretical,
and numerical analyses of typical real-world model-situations and
realistic material parameters, we establish that such a non-radiative
scheme could indeed be practical for middle-range wireless energy
transfer (i.e. within a room, or a factory pavilion). Important novel
applications are thus enabled.
Biographical Sketch
Marin Soljačić is currently an Assistant Professor in
the Physics Department at MIT. He was a Principal Research Scientist
in the RLE at MIT from 2003 to 2005. Previous to that, he was a
Pappalardo Fellow in the Physics Department at MIT. He is the recipient
of the Adolph Lomb medal from the Optical Society of America (2005).
His main research interests are in theoretical photonic crystals,
and non-linear optics. He is a co-author of 55 scientific articles,
and is a co-author of 14 patents pending (or issued) with the US
patent office, and has given more than 40 invited talks at conferences
and universities around the world.
URL: www.mit.edu/~soljacic
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