City Labs’ Tritium Battery

Tritium Batteries can power microelectronics, sensors, actuators and other devices in the defense, homeland security, commercial and medical industry.

City Labs is developing a series of Tritium Batteries with continuous power at the nanowatts/microwatts level and intermittent power bursts in the milliwatts range and a lifetime of over 20 years.

How Tritium Batteries Work

The basic principle of operation for a Tritium Battery is very similar to a Solar cell, commonly referred to as a photovoltaic cell.
(see Figure 1)

In a photovoltaic cell an electrical current is generated by light hitting the surface of the cell causing charges to move about and thereby creating the electrical current. In a Tritium cell the light source is replaced by a beta decay source (i.e. emits electrons). In the case of City Labs' Tritium Battery the beta source is Tritium an isotope of Hydrogen with a half-life of 12.3 years.

As shown Figure 2, the beta source emits beta particles (electrons) onto the surface of the cell thereby creating an electrical current. The main advantage of using Tritium as a beta source is the extremely long life of the source. It can provide over 20 years of power while being enclosed in a self contained unit that does not require sunlight and can operate under almost any temperature conditions. This is quite unlike traditional batteries that are chemical based and behaves poorly under extreme temperature variations and conditions.