Tiny robots and sensors need tiny batteries — here’s how to do it

Zhu, Minshen; Schmidt, Oliver G.

doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00021-2

COMMENT
13 January 2021

Tiny robots and sensors need tiny batteries — here’s how to do it

Improve materials and architectures to shrink microscopic devices.

Minshen Zhu⁰ &
Oliver G. Schmidt¹

Minshen Zhu
1. Minshen Zhu is a senior scientist at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences, Leibniz IFW Dresden, Germany.
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Oliver G. Schmidt
1. Oliver G. Schmidt is director at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences, Leibniz IFW Dresden, Germany, and a professor of material systems for nanoelectronics at the Centre for Materials, Architectures and Integration of Nanomembranes (MAIN), Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany.
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A tiny computer balanced on the edge of a coin — Credit: Martin Vloet/D. Blaauw, D. Sylvester & H. Kim/Michigan Micro Mote (M³)/Univ. Michigan

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Smart dust is about to enter our lives¹^,². Computers, sensors and robots as small as a grain of salt are being developed that can move around, detect light, sound, pressure, chemicals and magnetic fields. Less than a millimetre across and a few hundred micrometres thick, they process information and communicate wirelessly. They have a range of uses from medical diagnostics, surgery and brain monitoring to tracking butterflies and the conditions of crops.

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Nature 589, 195-197 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00021-2

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