Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have made a windmill so small, it could be mounted on a grain of rice. 10 of them were mounted, and if this goes as planned, there could be hundreds of windmills in a case that could charge your smartphone in the future.

UT Arlington's Smitha Rao and J.-C. Chiao designed the windmill. At its broadest, it is just 1.8mm wide. The windmill is built from nickel alloy for rigidity, and the fan is self assembled using wafer-scale semiconductor electroplating principles and a technique the team likens to origami.

Rao and Chiao have partnered with WinMEMS Technologies Co., to bring the tiny windmill to reality.



"Imagine that they can be cheaply made on the surfaces of portable electronics," Chiao said, "so you can place them on a sleeve for your smart phone. When the phone is out of battery power, all you need to do is to put on the sleeve, wave the phone in the air for a few minutes and you can use the phone again."