Research, from Cnr and PoliMi comes superfast quantum battery

Researchers from the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the Cnr and the Politecnico di Milano have built a battery which, following the laws of quantum physics, has a recharge time that is inversely correlated to the amount of stored energy. A new step that could result in possible applications for devices such as wireless chargers, solar cells and cameras. The researchers recall that quantum batteries are a new class of energy storage devices that operate according to the principles of quantum physics, the science that studies the infinitely small where the laws of classical physics do not always apply. Tersilla Virgili of the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnologies of the National Research Council (Cnr-Ifn) and Giulio Cerullo of the Physics Department of the Politecnico di Milano have shown that it is possible to manufacture a type of quantum battery where the charging power increases faster by increasing the battery capacity. The work, carried out together with other international research groups, was published in Science Advances. “Quantum batteries have a counter-intuitive property in which the recharge time is inversely related to the battery capacity, that is to the amount of stored electrical charge” explains Tersilla Virgili. “This leads to the intriguing idea – observes the scientist – that the charging power of quantum batteries is super-extensive, that is, that it increases faster with the size of the battery”. The manufactured device is a microcavity in which the active material is made up of organic molecules dispersed in an inert matrix and the researcher Giulio Cerullo points out that “each molecule represents a unit that can exist in a state of quantum superposition of two energy levels ( fundamental and excited), similar to the way a qubit, the basic unit of quantum information, can be both 0 and 1 simultaneously in quantum computers. ” By constructing the quantum battery in a way that units can exist in superposition, the total system can behave collectively. This behavior, known as quantum coherence, allows the units to act cooperatively, giving rise to a hyper-fast charge that depends on the number of molecule-units. “In the future this type of device can be applied in various scientific and technological fields such as wireless chargers, solar cells and cameras” concludes Virgili.