Re:Tiny 'nuclear batteries' unveiled
by ramchip on Friday October 09, 2009 @03:27AM
(#870801)
I have access to the paper. The device is interesting, but as usual journalists want to inflate the balloon some more...
They report a maximum of 16.2nW, open-circuit voltage of 899mV, short-circuit of 107.4nA. To give hackers a reference, in its current state, you'd need something like 50,000 of them to power a single 0.85mW Arduino chip.
In the U of Missouri article they say "The radioisotope battery can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries", but as far as I can see from the article they're not talking about their own battery; it's a general statement quoted from an old paper (F.K.Manasse,J.J.Pinajian,and A.N.Tse, IEEETrans.Nucl.Sci. 23,8601976).
The article in question is "Radioisotope microbattery based on liquid semiconductor" (Applied Physics Letters 95).
They report a maximum of 16.2nW, open-circuit voltage of 899mV, short-circuit of 107.4nA. To give hackers a reference, in its current state, you'd need something like 50,000 of them to power a single 0.85mW Arduino chip.
In the U of Missouri article they say "The radioisotope battery can provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries", but as far as I can see from the article they're not talking about their own battery; it's a general statement quoted from an old paper (F.K.Manasse,J.J.Pinajian,and A.N.Tse, IEEETrans.Nucl.Sci. 23,8601976).
The article in question is "Radioisotope microbattery based on liquid semiconductor" (Applied Physics Letters 95).