The world's first nuclear-diamond battery uses carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,700 years, to power devices.

The world’s first nuclear-powered battery, which uses a radioactive isotope embedded in a diamond, could power small devices for thousands of years, scientists say.

The nuclear battery uses the reaction of a diamond placed close to a radioactive source to spontaneously produce electricity, scientists at the University of Bristol in the U.K. explained in a Dec. 4 statement. No motion — neither linear nor rotational — is required. That means no energy is needed to move a magnet through a coil or to turn an armature within a magnetic field to produce electric current, as is required in conventional power sources.

The diamond battery harvests fast-moving electrons excited by radiation, similar to how solar power uses photovoltaic cells to convert photons into electricity, the scientists said.

  • @Eheran
    3•18 hours ago

    Comparing the runtime of a simple watch to a smart watch is a bit odd. Obviously you need next to no energy to run a simple clock, technology has been at that point since many decades. But for something with an actual screen, that does a ton of computing and has to connect to other devices… we are not there yet. If you reduce the requirements you get some days of runtime with some still smart-ish watches.

    But if you really want the watch from Apple… Just bring the charger? That is really not a big deal. The same way phones used to last days when all they did was wait for a call, but now they do not and people understand that.