light-emitting diodes and smart radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Researching companies Toshiba By using nanomaterial, Toshiba has increased the surface area of the lithium and widened the bottleneck, allowing the particles to pass through the liquid and recharge the battery more quickly. Toshiba states that it tested a new battery by discharging and fully recharging one thousand times at 77 °C and found that it lost only one percent of its capacity, an indication of a long battery life. °C Toshiba's battery is 3.8 mm thick, 62 mm high and 35 mm deep. A123Systems A123Systems has also developed a commercial nano Li-Ion battery. A123 Systems claims their battery has the widest temperature range at . Much like Toshiba's nanobattery, A123 Li-Ion batteries charge to "high capacity" in five minutes. Safety is a key feature touted by the A123 technology, with a video on their website of a nail drive test, in which a nail is driven through a traditional Li-Ion battery and an A123 Li-Ion battery, where the traditional battery flames up and bubbles at one end, the A123 battery simply emits a wisp of smoke at the penetration site. Thermal conductivity is another selling point for the A123 battery, with the claim that the A123 battery offers 4 times higher thermal conductivity than conventional Lithium-Ion cylindrical cells. The nanotechnology they employ is a patented nanophosphate technology. Valence Also in the market is Valence Technology, Inc. The technology they are marketing is Saphion Li-Ion Technology. Like A123, they are using a nanophosphate technology, and different active materials than traditional Li-Ion batteries. Altair AltairNano has also developed a nanobattery with a one-minute recharge. The advance that Altair claims to have made is in the optimization of nano-structured lithium titanate spinel oxide (LTO). U.S. Photonics U.S. Photonics is in the process of developing a nanobattery utilizing "environmentally friendly" nanomaterials for both the anode and cathode as well as arrays of individual nano-sized cell containers for the solid polymer electrolyte. U.S. Photonics has received a National Science Foundation SBIR phase I grant for development of nanobattery technology. Sony Produced the first cobalt-based lithium-ion battery in 1991. Since the inception of this first Li-ion battery, the research of nanobatteries has been underway with Sony continuing their strides into the nanobattery field. See also Supercapacitor Nanoelectronics Nanotechnology List of battery types References External links https://web.archive.org/web/20140712040425/http://accelerating.org/articles/phevfuture.html https://web.archive.org/web/20061209094343/http://www.accelerating.org/newsletter/2005/31may05.html http://www.technewsworld.com/story/hardware/41889.html http://www.a123systems.com http://www.valence.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20070710213510/http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.html Overview of Nanobatteries at UnderstandingNano