Wireless energy transfer or wireless power transmission is the process that takes place in any system where electrical energy is transmitted from a power source to an electrical load, without interconnecting wires. Wireless transmission is employed in cases where instantaneous or continuous energy transfer is needed, but interconnecting wires are inconvenient, hazardous, or impossible.

Though the physics are related, this is distinct from wireless transmission for the purpose of transferring information, where the percentage of the power that is received is only important if it becomes too low to successfully recover the signal. With wireless energy transfer, the efficiency is a more critical parameter and this creates important differences in these technologies.

All wireless energy transfer processes discussed in this document transfer energy through photons.

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