Super-thin flexible ‘organic radical’ battery

Although this looks like a contact lens for a large robotic eye, it’s really a rechargeable battery. It’s the product of a group of Japanese scientists, and it’s a polymer-based “organic radical” power source that can charge in just 60 seconds and can last 1,000 charges.

The film is just 200 nanometers thick and is the result of “spin-coating” a soluble polymer in a crosslinked fashion without losing the battery’s charge—until now an insurmountable hurdle.

And although the scientists envision this kind of flexible battery in wide release in some kind of finished form – like an LCD or an OLED, we can’t help but wonder whether you can see it again if you drop it on the floor.