A full wave rectifier is defined as a rectifier that converts the complete cycle of alternating current into pulsating DC. Unlike halfwave rectifiers that utilize only the halfwave of the input AC cycle, full wave rectifiers utilize the full cycle.
The efficiency of half wave rectifiers is 40.6% while the rectification efficiency of full wave rectifiers is 81.2%. The ripple factor in full wave rectifiers is low hence a simple filter is required. The value of ripple factor in full wave rectifier is 0.482 while in half wave rectifier it is about 1.21.