

Beyond Nano Breakthrough, MIT Team Quietly Builds Virus-Based Batteries - linhir
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4279923.html

======
s3graham
While I can appreciate the hack-ness of this, what's the benefit? It says
those electrodes are 4 micrometers wide == 4000nm. Intel's doing, what 45nm
now? Is it the materials that are used that make this interesting? Or just the
promise of extending the method?

~~~
jcdreads
When Intel "does" 45 nm, it means that the smallest design feature on a chip,
usually the width of a wire, is about 45 nm. Chipmakers explicitly specify
each chip, and then burn the actual image of the chip using photolithography;
they basically print the whole thing.

The technology in the article is a completely different thing: by mixing
viruses and chemicals in a bulk solution, they (more or less) get the
anode/cathode layers to self-assemble. It turns out that the structures are 4
µm thick (edit: comments in the original article suggest 32 nm features).

So the materials are interesting, and the large scale at which humans get to
work to make small scale devices is super interesting.

------
MaysonL
More detail here: <http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/virus-battery-0820.html>

