We may not have technology used in futuristic movies just yet, but now we’re one step closer: Researchers Yi Cui and his team at Stanford University has created the transparent battery, a component that would be required to power, for example, a fully-transparent display. Many electronic components can be fabricated to be transparent, but so far this hasn’t been possible for the power supply, says materials scientist Yi Cui, who led the work, which is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cui says there is a trade-off between the amount of energy able to be stored and the amount of transparency, because the thicker the electrodes, the less light will be able to get through, and his transparent batteries should be able to hold half as much energy as one that is opaque. Currently, Cui’s prototypes can store 20 watt-hours per liter, but Cui feels he can make the batteries hold more energy by making the polymer thinner, as well as digging deeper channels in which the electrode materials reside.

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