Batteries to serve as a nanobot’s power supply.

With the development of nanotechnology comes the need for small power sources. Since the conception of the idea of microscopic power sources, circa 1990, IBM has been working to make it a reality.

In a field that is so young and is moving so quickly it’s hard to see the milestones, but it has advanced from the theoretical research phase to patented techniques that will form the foundation for its growth and development.

One such patent has just been issued to the University of Tulsa for batteries that are so small that 40 could be stacked across the width of a human hair. Chemistry professor Dale Teeters and two of his former chemical engineering students, Nina Korzhova and Lane Fisher, have constructed thousands of tiny batteries, each of which can deliver up to 3.5 volts.

“These batteries aren’t going to drive a flashlight,” says Teeters, because they are so small their energy supply would be quickly exhausted. “There’s an incredibly tiny amount of energy involved, but if you have an incredibly tiny device then the device will function for the period of time that it needs to.”

Such a tiny battery could be used to drive a microbe-sized submarine through a patient’s blood vessels like the one featured in the 1966 science fiction movie, Fantastic Voyage. Teeters says he used to dismiss that movie as pure fantasy, but not anymore. A company in Germany has already developed just such a “submarine,” he says.

There are many conceptual devices that will benefit from such a power source. Perhaps when nanotechnology advances, to a point, these power sources will be common place in powering their world as they build it.

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