As a rule of thumb; bigger batteries charge slower. Your phone takes an hour. Your car takes all night, and a grid-scale installation takes the better part of a week. Two centuries of electrochemistry, and nobody has cracked this, but an Australian team just broke the rule using quantum physics.
The researchers built the world's first proof-of-concept quantum battery, charged wirelessly by laser. Instead of storing energy through chemical reactions like a normal battery, it exploits a quantum trick called super absorption, where all its storage units charge simultaneously in a single flash of light. The strange part; add more units and the whole thing charges faster, not slower. Double the size, halve the wait.
The catch, because there is always a catch with quantum anything: it currently stores energy for nanoseconds and holds a tiny charge. Then again, the Wright brothers' first flight lasted 12 seconds.
It’s hard to take a great picture of a battery… so hears a laser
🧐 What's in it for me? Their first practical home could be quantum computers, which need exactly this kind of fast, precise energy delivery. If that works, everything quantum computing promises gets closer.
💵 Out of the Lab: Quantum batteries are barely past proof-of-concept, but the first-mover dynamics are real. CSIRO is openly seeking commercial partners, which is unusual for a national lab.
IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) and Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI), both public quantum hardware companies, face the thermal and power management problems quantum batteries could eventually solve.
The winner likely isn't the battery maker alone, but whoever integrates quantum energy delivery into working quantum systems first.
Until next time, stay curious.
Like what you're reading? Share toast with a friend.