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Snotnose [soylentnews.org] writes:

A startup hopes to convert alpha particles into electricity. [energiesmedia.com]

Deep inside a compact laboratory, a chip no larger than a fingernail sits above a radioactive source and does something no commercial battery can.

It catches nuclear decay particles in flight and converts them straight into current.

No turbine. No heat exchanger. No moving parts.

The device is an alphavoltaic cell, and a portable fusion startup just secured a federal defense contract worth just over five million dollars to prove it can work at kilowatt scale.

So how, exactly, does a semiconductor chip turn the most hazardous decay particle into usable power?

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