Digital quantum battery proposed by the University of Illinois

27th December, 2009 by adina
Tags: Battery, News, Research, University of Illinois

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Alfred Hubler, a physicist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign campus, has described a new digital quantum battery that could offer both a huge increase of the energy output and in storage capacity. The gains are still theoretical at this moment, but the new concept consists in billions of nanoscale capacitors and is based on quantum effects happening at the atomic scale and able to boost energy storage. The new technology is expected to hold between two and ten times more energy than the best lithium-ion batteries currently available. As for conventional capacitors, the voltage applied to conducting plates separated by an insulating layer can cause waste of the stored energy by generating arcing. Extremely short spacing in quantum batteries, which is about 10 nanometers, is supposed to suppress this phenomenon.

Those who manufacture digital quantum batteries can use current lithographic technology, according to Hubler, and this helps to make them cheaply. If the funding is approved by the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), a battery could be manufactured this year. The nature of the batteries makes them easy to adapt for data storage too.

Joel Schindall, professor of electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the promising idea of making digital quantum batteries could present an issue regarding the strength of the nanofabricated materials that are forced to store energy.

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