[Asianometry] has been learning about gallium nitride semiconductors and shares what he knows in an informative video you can see below. This semiconductor material has a much higher bandgap voltage than the more common silicon. This makes it useful for applications that need higher efficiency and less heating.
The original use of the material was for LEDs, but we are seeing increasing use of the material in high-power applications like chargers. Phone chargers are especially common using this technology. This isn’t surprising when your think about how many phone chargers are needed worldwide every day.
Other places that need power-efficient devices are data centers, electric vehicles, and battery-operated equipment. It isn’t clear, though, that we can make enough of the material to meet global demand if it becomes extremely popular. This is especially true because the machinery and processes used to create silicon devices don’t work with gallium nitride. Silicon carbide is a competitor, and it could be easier to create, even though it isn’t as efficient as gallium nitride.
We’ve looked at gallium nitride before, and we are sure we are going to be seeing it again. Silicon carbide may one day operate on the surface of Venus. You can even use it to make homemade LEDs.
What if a socket on your phone or laptop fails? First off, it could be due to dust or debris. There’s swabs you can buy to clean a USB-C connector; perhaps adding some isopropyl alcohol or other cleaning-suitable liquids, you can get to a “good enough” state. You can also reflow pins on your connector, equipped with hot air or a sharp soldering iron tip, as well as some flux – when it comes to mechanical failures, this tends to remedy them, even for a short period of time.
