Researchers at the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany claimed to have developed a micro-battery, the size of a grain of sand, capable of powering a computer.
According to the paper published by the scientists, the device can also be used to energize biocompatible sensors embedded in the human body with the creation of so-called “harvest methods” to generate electricity.
The power to run tiny computers at submillimeter scale can be provided by developing appropriate batteries, and small photovoltaic cells that convert light into electrical energy on microchips are also promising.
Compact batteries with high energy density are manufactured using wet chemistry, with the electrode materials and additives processed into a paste and coated in a sheet of metal. However, they are larger than a square millimeter.
To get around this problem, the researchers fabricated a battery in layers, coating thin surfaces of polymeric, metallic and dielectric materials onto a semiconductor wafer, in the system known as a Swiss roll.
With this model, the mechanical stress is released during the relaxation of the thin layers and they automatically re-roll, assuming a cylindrical structure the size of a grain of sand, with a usable area of less than one square millimeter.
