Scientists at South Korea's National Research Council of Science & Technology have demonstrated a promising new battery architecture, and one that could lead to big improvements in capacity and charge times. The breakthrough stems from a new design for high-density lithium metal batteries that carefully controls problematic ion growths, enabling it to maintain its function over hundreds of cycles. The lithium batteries in use today feature an anode component made out of graphite, but were scientists able to use pure lithium metal instead, it would mark a huge leap in energy storage technology. That's because lithium metal has a theoretical capacity that is around 10 times higher, at around 3,860 mAh/g compared to graphite's 372 mAh/g, which would send electric vehicles much farther on each charge, for example, or enable smartphones to run for a week.