Nanowire Batteries To Serve as Power Source for Nanobots

Researchers at Rice University have built a rechargeable battery inside a single nanowire that’s 150nm (0.15 micron) in diameter. The researchers haven’t built just one, either: they’ve created an entire centimeter-scale array of thousands of nanowire batteries. Each nanowire is a completely discrete battery, consisting of all the usual elements: anode, cathode, and electrolyte.

While transparent batteries will be useful for consumer-oriented gadgets, nanowire batteries are more significant because they can power nanobots. To power tiny devices you need tiny batteries, and that’s exactly what nanowire batteries are. If you like the concept of whole fleets of nanobots fixing and cleaning bridges and buildings (and spaceships), then nanowire batteries are what we need. Likewise, if you one day want a swarm of nanobots coursing through your blood and acting as platelets, white blood cells, and generally acting as groundskeepers, then this invention from Rice University is very exciting indeed.

(via The rechargeable nanowire battery that makes nanobots possible | ExtremeTech)

via joshbyard: