THE Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has reported that materials science researchers have created a fast track that allows for the rapid transit of electrical energy through a well-known battery material, lithium iron phosphate. It is an advance that could usher in smaller, lighter batteries for cell phones and other devices that could recharge in seconds rather than hours. They have done it by creating a new surface structure that allows the lithium ions to move quickly around the outside of the material. Calculations showed that lithium ions can indeed move very quickly into the material but only through tunnels accessed from the surface, allowing rapid recharging. If a lithium ion at the surface is directly in front of a tunnel entrance, there's no problem. But in the standard material, if the ion isn't directly in front, it is prevented from reaching the tunnel entrance because it cannot move to access that entrance. Using their new processing technique, the researchers went on to make a small battery that could be fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds (it takes six minutes to fully charge or discharge a cell made from the unprocessed material). The work, reported in Nature, means that smaller, lighter batteries could be produced in future with possible major implications for electric car technology.