Your Next Battery May Be Nuclear
Kwon and MU research team members have been working on building a small nuclear battery, currently the size and thickness of a penny, intended to power various micro/nanoelectromechanical systems (M/NEMS). Although nuclear batteries can pose concerns, they are claimed to be safe. Nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pace-makers, space satellites and underwater systems.
The innovation is not only in the battery’s size, but also in its semiconductor. Kwon’s battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor. “The critical part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor,” Kwon said. “By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.”
[Source]
Elektor via
Electronics Lab
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