Unfortunately, battery technology isnt moving at the same pace as every other component in the latest generation of smartphones, meaning that, if anything, battery life is becoming comparatively shorter. Of course, as battery life is a hot topic, similar reports about breakthroughs make the headlines on a regular basis, but what makes this discovery, by the team headed up by Yi Cui, a professor of Material Science and Engineering, exciting is that it may have solved a problem that was at the core of existing lithium ion batteries.