Creating a quantum battery that stores energy 1,000 times longer

According to an announcement by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology posted on the Science Media Exchange platform, the research team has developed a completely new method to help quantum batteries - batteries that store energy through quantum superposition and interactions between electrons and light - retain energy for microseconds, instead of just nanoseconds as before.

What's special is that, unlike conventional batteries, quantum batteries don't rely on chemical reactions to store energy.

The study showed that the highest storage performance was achieved when two specific energy levels in the system were precisely matched, which significantly improved performance in all five test prototypes.

Chemical physicist Daniel Gomez, one of the authors of the study, said that building a complete quantum battery would take time. However, the experimental research this time is the core foundation for designing the next generation of devices.

The research is the result of collaboration between experts from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) - Australia's national science agency.

They hope that future quantum batteries could improve the efficiency of solar panels and power small electronic devices.