New device could increase battery life of smartphones by a hundred-fold
May 21, 2018 | 22:11 |2692
Among the chief complaints for smartphone, laptop and other battery-operated electronics users is that the battery life is too short. Now, a group of physicists led by Deepak Singh, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Missouri, has developed a device material that can address this issue. The team has applied for a patent for a magnetic material that employs a unique structure - a “honeycomb” lattice that exhibits distinctive electronic properties. Singh's team developed a two-dimensional, nanostructured material created by depositing a magnetic alloy, or permalloy, on the honeycomb structured template of a silicon surface. The new material conducts unidirectional current, or currents that only flow one way. The material also has significantly less dissipative power compared to a semiconducting diode, which is normally included in electronic devices. The magnetic diode paves the way for new magnetic transistors and amplifiers that dissipate very little power, thus increasing the efficiency of the power source. This could mean that designers could increase the life of batteries by more than a hundred-fold. Less dissipative power in computer processors could also reduce the heat generated in laptop or desktop CPUs. “Although more works need to be done to develop the end product, the device could mean that a normal 5-hour charge could increase to more than a 500-hour charge,” said Deepak Singh, the author of the study.Arslan KEMALOV
