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How much power can NFC deliver? 3
After [Razer announced that credit card with an LED on it](https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/10/6/21504004/razer-light-up-prepaid-card-rgb-lighting-rewards) (because of course they did), my buddy and I were wondering if NFC was enough to power an LED, even if it was momentary.
After refreshing my knowledge of LC circuits that I haven’t used since 2nd year university, [I pieced together a very simple RLC circuit tuned to 13.56MHz](https://i.imgur.com/pijhyVA.jpg).
The inductor is 4 windings with a 35mm diameter, giving me about 1.3uH of inductance, I paired that with a 100pF capacitor to create the ~13.56MHz resonant circuit.
Probing it on the scope gave me some really surprising results, with optimal placement of my phone, [the circuit was able to deliver almost 4Vrms](https://i.imgur.com/78o7R46.jpg)! On my 330Ohm load, that’s 47mW! More than enough to power an LED and have power to spare.
[After that, I hooked up an LED, packaged it all nice, and now I have a portable NFC detector to see if things are running on 13.56MHz or not](https://i.imgur.com/DBpk37u.jpg).
Next step is to try and power an Attiny on nothing but NFC…
You should be able to power low power requiring ICs. There are some NFC chips ([NXP makes some](https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/data-sheet/NT3H2111_2211.pdf)) which can do energy harvesting, and have enough energy to push small amounts of information over to a receiver (phone, reader, etc)
Just to add to this, yes, it can also supply enough power to power an NFC chip (such as the NTAG I2C), with enough power left to also light an LED. I know, because I have an xSIID NFC implant inside of my right hand, with a blue LED taking power from the NTAG I2C chip inside. So when near a 13.56MHz reader, my hand (specifically between my 1st and 2nd metacarpals) lights up blue.
Enough to refresh an e-ink display
https://www.seeedstudio.com/4-2inch-Passive-NFC-Powered-e-Paper-No-Battery-p-4384.html