Quantum batteries a step closer with superabsorption breakthrough

Research gets us closer to super-fast charging batteries.

Quantum batteries are now closer to reality, with proof of the idea of superabsorption by an international team of researchers.

The discovery could pave the way for a class of batteries that charge faster the bigger they get – as well as being able to charge just from ambient light in a room.

“Superabsorption is the idea that the rate at which the light can be absorbed by the molecule actually increases as you increase the number of molecules,” explains James Quach, a researcher at the University of Adelaide and lead author of a new study in Science Advances.

“This is a quantum collective effect.”

Superabsorption is key to the idea of quantum batteries. If molecules can absorb light at increasing speeds, they can be used to build quantum batteries which charge at increasing speeds.

“The more quantum batteries you had, the less time it would take to charge,” Quach explains. Specifically, the time would be related to the square root of the number of batteries lined up together.

While superabsorption has been demonstrated with small numbers of atoms, this is the first example of the concept at a larger scale.

“For a long time, this was just a theoretical idea,” says Quach. “We were the first to show this with organic molecules.”

The researchers believe this discovery can be used to build a prototype of a rechargeable quantum battery.