'Smart dust' is a vision of the networked future where intelligent networks of trillions of minuscule sensors continuously feel, taste, smell, see, and hear what is going on in their surrounding environment, communicate with each other and exchange information. Smart dust networks are the ultimate Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.
One of the biggest challenges in terms of making this tech work is of course - how can we power it. The main issues are energy density for such a small size and method of recharging. However latest research reported in Advanced Energy Materials shows a new technique for the creation of an on-chip micro-swiss-roll battery by using a self assembly process called micro-origami.
"Our work offers a new technology to create on-chip microbatteries and is compatible with both on-chip processes (lithography, etching, etc) and battery fabrication protocols (synthesis of high-performance electrode materials, making electrode slurries and uniform coating on the current collector)," he concludes. "The next stage of this work is to develop a parallel fabrication process for Swiss-roll microbatteries, which is an essential step towards their commercialization for actual applications."
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