Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
For more than a decade, scientists have been investigating ways to develop a “quantum battery” that stores energy using photons rather than electrons or ions.
While quantum batteries—thanks to properties like superabsorption and quantum entanglement—could theoretically charge more quickly than their classical counterparts, there’s been little evidence to show this sort of “quantum advantage.”
In a new study, scientists have developed a model battery that reaches the known quantum speed limit and provides a measurable advantage over classical batteries, but building such a device remains remarkably complicated.
Over the last few decades, it seems that every classical piece of technology has gotten a quantum counterpart. Of course, people spend the most time and resources trying to develop quantum computers, but there’s also advancements in things like the quantum internet, quantum cryptography, and yes, quantum AI.
However, one of these technologies that doesn’t get much time in the spotlight is quantum batteries. As their name suggests, quantum batteries store energy using photons—particles of light and the carrier for the electromagnetic force—rather than electrons or ions, as is the case with classical electrochemical batteries. But since their introduction in 2012, scientists have yet to convincingly establish the technology’s “quantum advantage”—does a quantum battery really surpass the function and capability of regular, old classical batteries?
Quantum batteries do have a few unique tricks up their sleeves, however. Due to attributes such as quantum entanglement and superabsorption—where the rate of absorption of light increases with the number of molecules—quantum batteries could charge much quicker than even the very best classical batteries. And now, a new study shows the first evidence of quantum advantage in this new type of battery.
In an article published in the journal Physical Review Letters, scientists from the PSL Research University in Paris and the University of Pisa describe how they developed a simple quantum battery model at a microscopic scale. So, no—this one won’t be charging your iPhone anytime soon. But this battery does provide a major boost for efforts to develop these potentially game-changing pieces of tech.
“Our model consists of two coupled harmonic oscillators: one acts as the ‘charger,’ and the other serves as the ‘battery,’” the authors told Phys.org. “The key ingredient enabling the quantum advantage is an anharmonic interaction between the two oscillators during the charging process. This anharmonic coupling allows the system to access non-classical, entangled states […] enabling faster energy transfer than in classical dynamics.”
The researchers also showed that the battery could theoretically reach the quantum speed limit (QSL), which is the maximum rate of change in a quantum system. This would definitely exceed the performance of classical batteries.
This isn’t the first theoretical model of a quantum battery. Last year, a group of researchers developed a model quantum battery the size of an atom that also used intermediate cavities to avoid “decoherence,” which is the process through which a system loses its quantum properties. But both of these examples are just theoretical models—building such a device that’s practical is something else entirely. It’s for this reason that researchers believe quantum batteries are still pretty far removed from everyday applications. The authors of this new paper say that their battery would need to be built using superconducting circuits, which experience zero electrical resistance at near-absolute zero temperatures.
“To the best of our knowledge, this work provides the first rigorous certification of a genuine quantum advantage in a solvable model,” the authors told Phys.org. “We hope that our work will stimulate further research on this exciting topic, fostering progress on both the theoretical and experimental fronts.”
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