Putting the quantum into battery

A new study led by researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies—Professor Meera Parish and ARC Future Fellow, Jesper Levinsen—has taken us a step closer to realistic quantum batteries by discovering that interactions within them are key to their charge advantage.

Quantum batteries offer the potential for vastly better thermodynamic efficiency, and ultra-fast charging time, much faster and more efficient than the electrochemical batteries like Nickel Metal Hydride or Lithium Ion, in common use today. By expanding earlier theoretical research into individual, isolated quantum batteries to consider a more realistic, many-body system with intrinsic interactions, the researchers have shown that interacting many-body quantum batteries do charge faster than their non-interacting counterparts.

The work demonstrates the merging of realistic condensed-matter systems with quantum thermodynamics, and is an important step towards realising a real-world application of the quantum battery.

	The forcing of a quantum battery into a new, ‘charged’ state represents an example of non-equilibrium physics, in which systems are ‘forced’ out of equilibrium into a temporary state.

 

Image: The research group at Monash University, including three of the authors (front row, from right to left) Thao Le, Meera Parish and Jesper Levinsen. Also present are PhD students Emma Laird (left) and Thomas Kirk (centre).
Credit: Steve Morton.