Smartphones make our lives easier and their battery performance has never been more important. For anyone who tends to forget their portable charger, and has their phone battery used up in the middle of a great time, the newly invented Solid-State Battery now saves the day from low battery anxiety. Fermi award winner John Goodenough, known since 1980 as the father of the lithium-ion battery, has produced another breakthrough, the solid-state battery. It charges fast, holds 3x the power of any other rechargeable room temperature battery, and is a safer, more powerful and longer-lasting alternative to the conventional lithium-ion battery.

Before solid-state batteries, we had the Whittingham lithium battery and then the lithium-ion battery. When the Whittingham lithium battery displayed a tendency to explode when overheated, John Goodenough identified the lithium cobalt oxide material which was to be used in the lithium-ion battery in 1980, solving the problem. Over the next few decades, he never ceased his research on battery improvements. This year, he has made a comeback with an idea that is even better than his previous one, by inventing a solid-state battery which uses glass electrolyte coated with sodium or lithium instead of liquid electrolyte. This increases the battery’s energy density while enabling an electric current to pass efficiently between a positive and a negative electrode.

John Goodenough, now 94 years old, is still driven to explore the next great breakthrough. He is looking forward to a super battery, not just battery improvements, to contribute to the electric vehicle market. John Goodenough demonstrates to the world how dedicated he is to battery technology. “I want to solve the problem before I throw in my chips,” he says. With his solid-state battery, he has given us the key to the future of battery-driven devices.