By coating the carbon anode of a LiIon battery with a tangle of these submicroscopic silicon nanowires a battery can store more lithium without cracking or degrading after hundreds of charge cycles.
Many companies are working on coming up with better materials for the cathode or the anode in order to increase the energy density of the battery cell.
The trick is to replace graphite with tin for the anode, which is one of the two main components in a battery cell, said Grant Norton, who headed the research and is a professor of mechanical and materials engineering at the university.