Betavoltaics have been around for 40+ years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betavoltaic_device
This device generates microwatts. You’d need thousands of them in parallel to power a typical mobile phone.
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
A betavoltaic device (betavoltaic cell or betavoltaic battery) is a type of nuclear battery which generates electric current from beta particles (electrons) emitted from a radioactive source, using semiconductor junctions. A common source used is the hydrogen isotope tritium. Unlike most nuclear power sources which use nuclear radiation to generate heat which then is used to generate electricity, betavoltaic devices use a non-thermal conversion process, converting the electron-hole pairs produced by the ionization trail of beta particles traversing a semiconductor.Betavoltaic power sources (and the related technology of alphavoltaic power sources) are particularly well-suited to low-power electrical applications where long life of the energy source is needed, such as implantable medical devices or military and space applications.
Why the fuck does this bot copy the text into a code block? It makes it unreadable.
I’ve done that so that it appears highlighted and seperated. Which client do you use? It’s definitely readable for me.
What’s the specific energy and power? If it isn’t terrible, could be very good for things like spacecraft.
Deep space probes are already nuclear power sources.
Right now this is mostly a radio isotope heat source and a peltier device to convert the temperature differential to electricity.
Yeah, RTDs. But I don’t know if these semi conductor based ones would have better performance.
Not for space craft if what @MilderRichter says is right. To generate power from a peltier you need a temperature differential between the two sides. It is very hard to bleed off heat in space since it’s a vacuum. That means a temperature differential is very difficult to achieve and it takes power to do that. Which would necessitate more of these, which means a bigger or additional heat removal system, which means you need more of these, which means a bigger or additional heat removal system, etc, etc, etc.
According to the article, it outputs 100 micro watts at 3 volts. Apparently for 50 years.
So you’d need 10,000 of them to generate 1 watt.
Sounds useless.
Vapor
Meanwhile the Voyager proves launched in 1977 are still live and kicking. Yeah one of them is getting pissy at us but it’s still rolling.
