this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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100 microwatt is plenty for a lot of applications.
it ain't replacing lithium on phones despite what the headline suggests tho.
Yup. Not for phones, but maybe something that doesn't require much power, and would benefit from a very long battery life.
Maybe things like doorbells in situations where connecting them to mains electricity is too cumbersome a process.
Or fire alarms. I know of a couple of foolish people who, when the batteries died, they didn't bother putting new ones in.
There are lots of possibilities for this type of battery.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/degraw2/
Medical devices is an obvious potential application for beta decay power. In the past, nuclear power sources were at a major size disadvantage and chemically powered cells can also provide very long service life at such small power draw.
So this definitely isn't nearly as much of a new concept as the media is suggesting. The question is whether they have achieved a compact enough design to be preferential over competing chemically powered cells.
Another application would be cmos batteries for holding memory states. Using ssds in external enclosures is compelling to reduce the amount of time it takes to actually read and write a full drive. But ssds need to be powered every once in a while. If their internal power storage depletes they lose data. Backup ssd drives with an indefinite power source would definitely be a compelling option. I do however doubt if this technology could ever be cheap enough for such an application. The materials used seem rather expensive.
Is that even enough for a single LED to turn on?