If only the evil AIs in The Matrix had been smart enough to create piezoelectric nanowire generators, they wouldn’t have had to go to extraordinary lengths to harvest the paltry amounts of juice we meatbots generate. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have engineered a type of nanogenerator from zinc-oxide nanowires. Like quartz crystal, the nanowires are piezoelectric, i.e. they generate power when they’re stressed. Bending them produces electricity, making them a possible candidate for a power source in future bionic implants. A generator made from bundles of these wires (each 20-40 billionths of a meter in diameter) could, researchers say, produce enough energy to power the implantable medical devices of the near future.
You can find out more about Georgia Tech’s Nanotechnology Research Center here.