Yi Cui, the school's professor of materials science, and chemistry engineer Candace Chan and five others wrote a project to boost the battery's strength. Technology can also be applied to electric cars because solar energy is more efficient than existing products.
Lithium-Ion batteries currently only store lithium at carbon anodes. Silicon semiconductor anodes can store more energy but tend to fail faster. However, the battery that Cui developed saved lithium in countless nanoscale silicon wires that made molecular bonds unbreakable.
Laptop batteries operate for 20 hours thanks to nanowire technology Picture 1 Nanoscale silicon wire before lithium (left) absorbs lithium (right).