A collaborative team of Australian scientists from CSIRO, the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) has successfully developed and tested the world’s first proof-of-concept quantum battery system.
The researchers have said this is a major advancement in energy storage technology that could eventually transform charging speeds for both conventional and quantum devices.
The research, published in the journal Nature Light: Science & Applications, demonstrates a counterintuitive quantum phenomenon: the larger the battery, the faster it charges, a complete reversal of conventional battery behaviour, where increased capacity typically demands longer charging times.
Dr James Quach, quantum science and technologies science leader at CSIRO, who led the engineering team, explained the breakthrough validates fundamental quantum mechanics principles in a practical energy storage context.
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“The research and proof-of-concept validates the exciting potential of quantum batteries to achieve rapid, scalable charging and energy storage at room temperature, laying the groundwork for next-gen energy solutions,” Quach said.
“Our findings confirm a fundamental quantum effect that’s completely counterintuitive: quantum batteries charge faster as they get large.”
The prototype builds on earlier work by the CSIRO team, which in 2022 demonstrated the exotic charging behaviour of quantum batteries using an organic microcavity device.
That initial prototype demonstrated that charging time decreases proportionally to 1/√N, where N is the number of molecules in the battery. However, the 2022 device lacked a critical component: a mechanism to extract stored energy as usable electrical current.
The latest iteration addresses this limitation by incorporating additional layers that convert stored quantum energy into electrical current, representing, CSIRO says, “a major step towards a practical quantum battery.”
How quantum batteries exploit collective effects
Unlike conventional batteries that rely on chemical reactions to store and release energy, quantum batteries exploit what physicists call “collective quantum effects,” a phenomenon arising from the strange rules governing superposition and entanglement at the quantum scale.
Associate Professor James Hutchison from the University of Melbourne, who participated in the research, explained the fundamental difference in operational principles.
“Similar to conventional batteries, quantum batteries charge, store and discharge energy. But while everyday batteries rely on chemical reactions, quantum batteries leverage properties of quantum mechanics,” Hutchison said.
“The advantage of quantum is that the system absorbs light in a single, giant ‘super absorption’ event, and this charges the battery faster.”
Under specific conditions, the storage units within quantum batteries don’t behave as individual components but act collectively.
This collective behaviour means that if a quantum battery contains N storage units, and each unit would take one second to charge individually, charging all units simultaneously reduces the charging time for each unit to just 1/√N seconds.
Consequently, doubling the battery’s size reduces charging time to slightly more than half the original duration, as if each storage unit “knows” that other units were present and charged faster in their collective presence.
This represents a radical departure from the charging dynamics of lithium-ion batteries powering mobile phones and electric vehicles (EVs), where larger capacity batteries invariably require proportionally longer charging times.
A mobile phone might fully charge in an hour, while an EV typically requires overnight charging despite using fundamentally similar electrochemical technology. You can find out more about EV charging infrastructure on our sister site EV Infrastructure News.
The University of Melbourne’s Ultrafast Laser Laboratory in the School of Chemistry played a key role in validating the prototype’s fast-charging behaviour through advanced spectroscopy techniques.
Professor Trevor Smith noted the facility’s specialised capabilities were essential to the research.
“The unique capabilities of our Ultrafast Laser Lab, including dual femtosecond laser amplifiers and tuneable optical parametric amplifiers, were critical in enabling us to record ultrafast signals over orders of magnitude in time,” Smith said.
Market implications remain distant, but quantum computing applications beckon
Despite the scientific breakthrough, major technical hurdles remain between the laboratory prototype and commercial viability.
The current quantum battery’s energy capacity remains minuscule at several billion electron-volts, and its charge retention time is measured in nanoseconds, which is far too limited to power conventional consumer electronics like smartphones or laptops.
However, the technology’s limitations for everyday devices may prove irrelevant if quantum batteries find their natural application powering quantum computers themselves.
As quantum computing technology advances toward practical implementation, the energy storage systems required to operate quantum processors at scale remain an unsolved challenge.
Quantum batteries operating at room temperature with ultra-fast charging could provide the precise energy-storage solution quantum computers need to scale beyond current laboratory constraints.
Quach acknowledged the developmental pathway ahead while expressing optimism about the technology’s trajectory.
“While there’s still much work to be done in quantum battery research, we’ve made an important move towards realising the possibilities. The next step right now for quantum batteries is extending their energy storage time,” he said.
The CSIRO team is currently exploring hybrid designs that would combine the exceptional charging speed characteristic of quantum batteries with the extended storage duration of conventional batteries, potentially creating energy storage systems that leverage the advantages of both quantum and classical physics.
