HOW IT WORKS
How GaN chargers work
They’re smaller, lighter and quicker, but what’s their secret?
YOU WILL LEARN
What a GaN charger is, why it’s an improvement on current chargers and what they can do for travellers.
Key fact
GaN chargers generate less heat than regular models, and transfer power more efficiently. This means they can be built with several outlets, charging multiple devices at once, including notebooks. The future of mobile device charging belongs to GaN chargers.
GaN chargers are cool. Not in the informal statement of approval sense, but they’re quite literally cool. By using gallium nitride (GaN for short) instead of silicon for their transformers, GaN chargers generate less heat when charging. This means the components can be packed closer together in the unit, making them smaller and easier to carry around. And with less energy being lost to heat, the power is more efficiently transferred into what it is you’re charging. They can carry a greater voltage than silicon too. The end result? Faster charging.
Gallium nitride itself isn’t a new discovery. It’s been used in blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) since the Nineties, and later provided the breakthrough that made the first white LEDs possible. It’s also used for solar cell arrays on satellites, and the blue lasers used in Blu-ray players. But it’s the potential of gallium nitride semiconductors in chargers and power supply units we’re interested in here, and in this area, it’s fairly new.