--- title: DIY Nuclear Battery With PV Cells And Tritium | daily.dev description: A DIY nuclear battery can be built by sandwiching tritium vials between amorphous PV cells. Tritium vials contain a phosphor coating that glows from... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/diy-nuclear-battery-with-pv-cells-and-tritium-vsjp2o4cb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: DIY Nuclear Battery With PV Cells And Tritium | daily.dev og:description: A DIY nuclear battery can be built by sandwiching tritium vials between amorphous PV cells. Tritium vials contain a phosphor coating that glows from... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/diy-nuclear-battery-with-pv-cells-and-tritium-vsjp2o4cb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vsjP2O4CB.png og:image:alt: DIY Nuclear Battery With PV Cells And Tritium og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # DIY Nuclear Battery With PV Cells And Tritium **[Hackaday](https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A DIY nuclear battery can be built by sandwiching tritium vials between amorphous PV cells. Tritium vials contain a phosphor coating that glows from radioactive decay, and the light is captured by the PV cells to generate current in the nanoamp range at around 0.5 V per cell. Wrapped in aluminium foil and connected to a capacitor, the setup measured just under 3 V after a night of charging. Matching the PV cell's bandgap more closely to the radiation source could yield a few milliwatts, as seen in commercial nuclear batteries. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Tritium Nuclear Battery Offers Low-Risk Space Energy](https://daily.dev/posts/tritium-nuclear-battery-offers-low-risk-space-energy-djcaiiwus) · IEEE Spectrum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A Benchtop Neutron Generator For The Home Reactor](https://daily.dev/posts/a-benchtop-neutron-generator-for-the-home-reactor-pc6ugsywn) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [City Labs launches the first commercial nuclear satellite](https://daily.dev/posts/city-labs-launches-the-first-commercial-nuclear-satellite-y3aga4l89) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Running A Desktop PC Off AA Alkaline Cells](https://daily.dev/posts/running-a-desktop-pc-off-aa-alkaline-cells-txabsrws5) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A ZInc Air Battery You Can Make Yourself](https://daily.dev/posts/a-zinc-air-battery-you-can-make-yourself-ll1igs9xf) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/diy-nuclear-battery-with-pv-cells-and-tritium-vsjp2o4cb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"DIY Nuclear Battery With PV Cells And Tritium","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/diy-nuclear-battery-with-pv-cells-and-tritium-vsjp2o4cb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/diy-nuclear-battery-with-pv-cells-and-tritium-vsjp2o4cb"},"datePublished":"2026-04-20T08:25:47.476Z","dateModified":"2026-04-20T08:26:05.030Z","description":"A DIY nuclear battery can be built by sandwiching tritium vials between amorphous PV cells. 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