AutoPhi Quantum Battery
A research concept for photon-pumped, quantum-dot energy storage in CMOS-compatible wafer-scale substrates.
Status — Research concept, not a working device
This page describes a proposed architecture under early investigation. No prototype currently exists. Performance figures cited below are research targets derived from published literature on collective quantum-battery effects (Quach et al. 2022; Campaioli et al. 2017; Binder et al. 2015), not measured specifications of an AutoPhi device. Any future commercial use will depend on whether each stage of the experimental program below produces results consistent with those targets. We do not currently know that it will.
1. What we’re proposing
The AutoPhi Quantum Battery (AQB) is a four-layer monolithic stack:
- Pump layer — an array of GaN micro-LEDs emitting at the absorption edge of the quantum-dot lattice below.
- Quantum-dot absorber layer — densely packed CdSe/ZnS or InAs/InP dots acting as the charging elements. Spacing chosen to enter the cooperative absorption regime studied by Quach et al. (2022).
- Extraction layer — doped-poly or graphene grid that tunnels carriers out to the external port.
- CMOS power-management IC — conventional switched-capacitor / boost converter circuitry. This layer is well-understood industrial silicon and not the speculative part.
The conceptual claim, which we treat as a hypothesis rather than an assertion, is that collective photon absorption across a dense room-temperature QD lattice can recover the √N charging-time speedup predicted in the quantum-battery literature, while running on commercially viable substrates.
2. What current physics permits
Below is the envelope of what AQB could achieve if every benign assumption holds. These are targets, not specifications.
| Parameter | Plausible ceiling | Basis |
|---|
| Storage density | ~0.5–2 Wh/cm² | Bounded by QD packing density and photon DOS |
| Round-trip efficiency | 60–80% (long-term) | Published quantum-battery experiments sit at 10–30% today; Li-ion is ~95% |
| Charging-rate speedup | ~√N for collective array | Binder/Campaioli scaling; depends on coherence time exceeding pulse duration |
| Cycle life | Open question | QD photobleaching is the dominant failure mode |
3. What this architecture does not do
Energy conservation is a constraint, not a target.
The AQB requires an external photon source for charging. Total energy delivered out of the cell cannot exceed total energy supplied to the pump layer. Earlier internal materials describing “net surplus exported,” “self-recharging,” or “unlimited energy” are retracted; those descriptions would require violating the first law of thermodynamics and are not part of this concept.
Two further restatements:
- “75 MW burst capability” → peak instantaneous discharge into a matched load, on the order of a microsecond, drawing on stored charge in the array. This is a discharge-current claim, not a generation claim, and requires the cell to be fully charged from an external source first.
- “84–98% round-trip efficiency” → aspirational target for a Stage 4 prototype. Current published quantum-battery experiments report ~10–30% effective storage. Reaching 80%+ would be a major scientific result on its own and is not something AQB has yet demonstrated.
4. Open questions a reviewer would ask
- Decoherence at room temperature. The collective speedup requires the QD lattice to maintain coherence for at least one charging-pulse duration. Semiconductor QD coherence at 300 K is typically picoseconds. Does the pulse fit inside that window?
- Heat rejection. A burst discharge at 80% efficiency dumps the other 20% as heat. What’s the thermal model for the wafer package?
- Cycle stability and photobleaching. QDs degrade under repeated optical pumping. What lifetime is targeted, and what evidence supports it?
- Independent measurement. Is there a partner institution willing to validate the Stage 1 prototype on independent equipment?
- Power-source accounting. Every output figure must be paired with the corresponding input figure. The honest spec is
(output J, output W) given (input J, input W).
5. Staged research program
Each stage below has a go/no-go gate. We are publicly at Stage 0.
Stage
Goal
License value (illustrative)
0
Concept whitepaper & prospectus. Public.
Free / open publication
1
Single 1 cm² test cell; measure round-trip efficiency and charging speedup against a control capacitor.
$100K–$500K (research-grant scale)
2
10 × 10 array; confirm or refute √N charging scaling. The make-or-break experiment.
$5M–$25M
3
Wafer-scale integration with PMIC; first system-level prototype.
$50M–$250M
4
Cycle-life and thermal characterisation; productisable cell.
$500M–multi-billion if competitive with Li-ion on any axis
A Stage 0 license today gives the buyer access to the prospectus document, architecture diagrams, and a working dialogue with the principal investigator. It does not give the buyer a functioning battery, because one does not yet exist.
6. License terms (summary)
- Provided AS-IS. No warranty, express or implied, that the technology functions as described or that any stage of the program will succeed.
- Non-exclusive, non-transferable license for U.S. territory.
- All payments are final and non-refundable — including in the event that subsequent research stages do not produce the predicted results.
- Improvements revert to licensor. Buyer-side modifications and derivative works become CRI-One property.
- Patents are pending; none have been granted as of this writing. The buyer is licensing access to the design and prospectus, not a granted patent.
- Jurisdiction: Gwinnett County, Georgia.
7. Selected references
- Alicki, R. & Fannes, M. (2013). Entanglement boost for extractable work from ensembles of quantum batteries. Phys. Rev. E 87, 042123.
- Binder, F. C., Vinjanampathy, S., Modi, K. & Goold, J. (2015). Quantacell: powerful charging of quantum batteries. New J. Phys. 17, 075015.
- Campaioli, F., et al. (2017). Enhancing the charging power of quantum batteries. Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 150601.
- Hovhannisyan, K. V., et al. (2013). Entanglement generation is not necessary for optimal work extraction. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240401.
- Quach, J. Q., et al. (2022). Superabsorption in an organic microcavity: Toward a quantum battery. Sci. Adv. 8, eabk3160.
- Joshi, J. & Mahesh, T. S. (2022). Experimental investigation of a quantum battery using star-topology NMR spin systems. Phys. Rev. A 106, 042601.
- Nozik, A. J. (2002). Quantum dot solar cells. Physica E 14, 115.
Christopher Gabriel Brown — CRI-One Research.
Communication by email or postal mail. Stage-1 collaboration proposals welcome.