Digital Home Thoughts: Japanese Scientists Create 200nm Thick Polymer-based Battery

"Three scientists at Waseda University have developed a new polymer-based rechargeable battery that could find its way into a number of devices in the future. Hiroyuki Nishide, Hiroaki Konishi and Takeo Suga designed the battery to be extremely thin (200 nanometers thick) and incorporate a high charge/discharge capacity, yet it is still durable enough to survive the rigors of recharging. "This is just one of many advantages the 'organic radical' battery has over other organic based materials which are limited by the amount of doping," said Dr. Nishide. "The power rate performance is strikingly high - it only takes one minute to fully charge the battery. And it has a long cycle life, often exceeding 1,000 cycles." The battery is composed of a redox-active organic polymer film which is then combined with nitroxide radical groups. And unlike some other radical polymer battery solutions that have been developed in the past, this new battery does not have problems with self-discharging."



Well, let's all collectively shout it out for Japanese ingenuity. This is great advancement and has honestly taken a huge step towards seriously miniaturizing devices in the future. Star Trek, here we come. Of course, there have been other major news items in the past that have pushed the envelope when it comes to battery design or life (we care about batteries so much since they really are the gating factor to how far our devices can currently go) and then they have gone no-where, so I can only hope that this will lead to something in the near'ish future.