Nano-tube to make a good battery
EETimes Peter Clarke
Researchers at the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign, reckon the vacuum tube could be basisof a high energy density battery, or a non-volatile memory.Intheory, arrays of nanometer-scale vacuum tubes should be able toachieve three times the energy density of lithium-ionbatteries.
The researchers - Alfred Hubler and Onyeama Osuagwu - hasprepared a report entitled Digital Quantum Battery: energy andinformation storage in nanovacuum tube arrays. However, the work istheoretical and it remains to be seen whether the technology canlive up to its theoretical potential.
Authors claim that, if the appropriate design in thenano-level, power failures can be used to quantify the phenomenonof suppression, while the capacity is very large, due to the smallsize of the gap to 10 nm.
Such digital quantum batteries, even when requiring arrays ofbillions of tubes, have a number of practical advantages. They canuse the built-in traditional silicon wafer substrate usingconventional lithography friendly metal materials and the use ofsilica for the insulating tube wall.
Carbon nanotubes are proposed and tungsten anode material ofthe cathode. And this battery can be easily integrated circuit chipon a substrate, including rechargeable batteries.
The arrangement has other advantages. The charge, dischargerates of such nanotubes should exceed all other devices, theauthors calculate, but at the same time vacuum nanotubes should beable to retain electrical energy without losses for many years,giving rise to the possibility of configuring the nanotube as anonvolatile memory device.