Tired of cellphones and other electronic gadgets that run out of juice too quickly? Then you can happily look forward to further developments from the lab of researcher Jae Wan Kwon, who has developed a long-lasting nuclear battery the size and thickness of a penny. In time, Kwon hopes to get the size down so that the battery is no thicker than a human hair. The batteries pose no danger of a nuclear meltdown, Kwon notes.
Although nuclear batteries generate electricity from atomic energy like nuclear reactors, they don’t use a chain reaction, instead using the emissions from a radioactive isotope to generate electricity [Gizmag].
As the isotope naturally decays, the charged particles released can be used to create an electrical current. Nuclear batteries, which hold their charges for years, are already used in some specialty fields. For example, they're used to power spacecraft that are voyaging too far from ...
