The problem is that over time, or if the battery is subject to a sudden shock, the battery's cells can be damaged, resulting in a power-killing short. At this point, all you can do is get a new battery.

White's team has tackled this problem by coating the battery's cathode with billions of microspheres filled with gooey gallium-indium. The key is that the spheres have been designed to break open when stressed (like when the device is dropped) or heated up (as when the battery shorts).

"We can trigger the microcapsules through mechanical force, temperature or pH," explains White from his lab at the university. "The capsules release their contents when damage occurs and a healing reaction takes place."

The gallium-indium quickly can flow in to fill in the gaps to fix the short, and the battery can be restored in as little as 40 microseconds. In most cases, that's not even enough time for the battery's control electronics to shut it down. "We get restoration of conductivity," adds White. "It is immediate."

For now, the microcapsule method works just once; if you drop your device a second time, you're out of luck. But White told me his team is working on ways to incorporate several different materials to make it possible to fix a battery several times.