Researchers report micro-battery advance

Researchers report micro-battery advance
SEOUL, South Korea — Korean researchers have reported an advance in developing a next-generation micro-battery that could be used to power future smart cards, micro-robots and small precision instruments. A research team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology developed a micro-battery that operated a stopwatch for 20 days on a single charge.

The device was made using thin-film IC manufacturing techniques on a silicon wafer. The micro-battery can charge and discharge 3 volts. A solid electrolyte of lithium along with a copper cathode and lithium again for the electrode were used to fabricate the battery, the researchers said.

The researchers will next develop a battery with higher voltages and current densities that can be charged and discharged more than 1,000 times. By 2002, they hope to develop a commercial product that could be recharged more than 2,000 times.

Micro-batteries can be made very thin, and are therefore attracting research interest for powering micro-robots, smart cards and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

"We will concentrate on improving the micro-battery's performance to make it useful as the main power supply of intelligent micro-systems," said Wonil Cho, who led the Institute's research team along with Youngsu Yoon. The Institute invested about $345,000 on micro-battery research and development as part of its precision instrument development.

— Exclusive to EE Times by Chom Dan Inc. (Seoul, South Korea).