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Patents Science Technology

Nano Power for Nano Devices Patented 30

Posted by timothy from the small-things-small-packages dept.
lperdue writes "Scientists at the Univ. Oklahoma at Tulsa have come up with a microscopic battery just a thousandth of a millimetre across ... and rated at a millionth of a milliamp. It's still a lab experiment, but then so was the semiconductor at one time."
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Nano Power for Nano Devices Patented More

Nano Power for Nano Devices Patented

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  • Utility? (Score:2, Funny)

    by shfted! ( 600189 )
    Lemme guess... we'll need a battery of these things to do anything useful.

    • Re:Utility? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AlgebraicSpore ( 590915 )
      I think the better thing is that you could spread it out over a thin sheet instead of making the battery shapes of right now. Like you could cover the bottom of a laptopcase with them. That is just my two cents.

  • On behalf of the metric system (Score:5, Informative)

    by blacklite001 ( 453622 ) on Monday September 01, 2003 @08:59PM (#6847082)
    That's a micrometer and a nanoamp.

    Really, that's what prefixes are for, you can do better than that. Thanks.
    • Thank you, that was bugging the hell out of me too.
    • yes, I know you are right and I agree. I was using the same units as the original piece from Nature ... I would guess that Nature was going for the largest possible comprehension level -- aka "dumbing it down."

      It raises issues of journalistic judgement. I assume that slashdotters will all understand micro- nano- and pico- but what happens when we get into femto- and atto-? Likewise, we know mega- giga- and tera-, but what about peta- and exa-?

      Again, you're correct but I think that Nature opted for maximu
      • Alright, I'm sick of people not knowing the metric system. (Rant coming on...)

        I think that some basic knowledge of the metric system is just one of those things that people need to know. It isn't that hard! Atto- through exa- is a decent range to know, and for most values you will be covered. Conversion is trivial if you stick to normal units like kilo- and milli-, and don't get into units like centi- or deci-, and my TI-82 even has a mode to give scientific notation answers with convenient powers of ten,

    • I can just picture a micrometer now; you know, a tiny measuring device (i.e., a meter) a millionth the size of a normal one. Why, it would be so tiny that you would need to measure it in micrometres (i.e., tiny units of length, each a millions the size of a metre)!

  • A new candy! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Josh Booth ( 588074 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <0002htoobhsoj>> on Monday September 01, 2003 @09:00PM (#6847092)
    How about we create a new kind of candy with this stuff. It would be like Poprocks but it electrocutes you with the millions of micro-batteries it has. I wonder how toxic these batteries are.

    <quote source="The Simpsons">
    "We knew that the gum had spiders eggs in it, but the Haunta virus! Heh heh."
    --Krusty the Klown
    </quote>

    Oh, it's patented. Nevermind.

  • Lab experiments (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01, 2003 @09:05PM (#6847121)
    It's still a lab experiment, but then so was the semiconductor at one time.

    Just like that blue cheese in my refrigerator was once milk.

  • Microscopic battery (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday September 01, 2003 @09:13PM (#6847163) Homepage Journal
    Below is an attached a pic of the battery.

    .
  • I hope these things are stackable

  • Admins, please read the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) * on Monday September 01, 2003 @11:28PM (#6847754)
    It's not a microscopic battery. From the article:

    ...For this reason, some researchers feel that it is premature to describe the set- up as a battery.


    Also, the title is misleading. "Nano Power for Nano Devices Patented" sounds like the idea of having any power for nano devices has been patented. It's not that. The researchers have simply come up with a method to produce a structure that could be used for the purpose. There are undoubtedly numerous other ways of achieving this same goal. They're just one of the first reporting one to the mainstream press.

  • Battery size.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Tuesday September 02, 2003 @06:58AM (#6848972) Journal
    Is it an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA battery then?

  • This invention was created at the University of Tulsa [utulsa.edu], a private institution. There is a University of Oklahoma at Tulsa [ou.edu], but that's a different entity, part of the state university system.

    The situation is much the same in my current hometown, where we have a University of Denver (private) and a University of Colorado-Denver (public).

  • Ouch! (Score:1)

    by iCat ( 690740 )
    Assuming a sheet 1 battery deep, coating the base of my Powerbook would allow for:

    depth: 245mm x 1000 batteries/mm = 245 000 batteries

    width: 305mm x 1000 batteries/mm = 305 000 batteries

    Giving a grand total of 8.6x10^10 batteries That's a current of: 8.6x10^7 Amps, which is quite scary!

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