New research happening at the University of Adelaide will soon change the charging hours for your smartphone. Dr. James Quach aims to use the unique properties of quantum mechanics to build the world’s fastest charging battery which can be charged instantly. Dr. Quach is an expert in quantum physics, and he said that the potential of instant charging could be made possible through a feature of quantum mechanics called entanglement.
It is a phenomenon of quantum mechanics in which two entangled objects share their individual properties with each other even when they are separated. As a result, when actions are performed on one object, the other one also gets affected. This phenomenon occurs at a molecular level where ordinary laws of physics do not work. It is because of this property that it is possible to speed up the charging process. He said that this invention is based on a theory that as the number of quantum batteries increases, the charging speed also increases. This doesn’t happen in conventional batteries even if their number is increased.
This implies that if one quantum battery takes an hour to charge, adding another one will decrease the time to half. With 10,000 such batteries, the charging will take less than a second. Once the battery is developed, it will cut the charging time to almost zero. Dr. Quach said that the idea of developing a quantum battery is not new and has been discussed over the past years. However, he wants to take the theory from the blackboard and bring it to the lab. He said, “Entanglement is incredibly delicate, it requires very specific conditions – low temperatures and an isolated system – and when those conditions change the entanglement disappears. With the support of the academic community in Adelaide, interstate and globally, I aim to extend the theory of the quantum battery, construct a lab conducive to the conditions needed for entanglement, and then build the first quantum battery.”
The quantum battery can be used in small electronic devices like watches, smartphones, and similar other products which depend on the stored energy. Dr. Quach also aims to scale up the project and build bigger batteries which can be used in renewable energy sources. He said, “Entanglement is incredibly delicate, it requires very specific conditions – low temperatures and an isolated system – and when those conditions change the entanglement disappears.”
Physicists in Italy were also successful in designing a quantum battery which can be built using the solid-state technology. They also claim that their device will charge up quickly through entanglement and can be used to power up computers. It will take a lot of time for the results to show but once developed, the batteries might be the solution to energy problems all over the world.