Flexible Battery Development Could Lead to Foldable Gadgets (Video)
Aug 07, 2012 12:02
Korean scientists created a battery that's super thin and flexible and it promises to one day lead to gadgets with big screens that can be folded away into your pocket. That sounds very interesting.
Today's phones and screens are rigid. And there's an upper limit as to what you can fit in a pocket or a handbag. But if gadgets can be folded up, it's an entirely new ground breaking way of storing your devices. There have been flexible screens for a while already. The E Ink screens and OLEDs can be made flexible, But it's the other components which are not so much.
The battery, which tends to be the largest single part of any portable device is also something that's not flexible. So it makes sense that a folding battery would be a big step toward bendable products. Professor Keon Jae Lee of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and his team made that happen.
Lee created a lithium ion battery that's razor thin and retains its voltage even while being bent. You can see it in the video below where the battery is powering a blue LED, and it never flickers when the battery is twisted. It’s later tested with a voltmeter while bending, and the voltage hardly changes at all.
Lee is looking into mass producing techniques and the possibility of stacking up batteries for greater power output. What do you think of a foldable battery? And a foldable device?
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