The guys in the aisle at Home Depot don't know it. But that $800 DeWalt cordless power-tool set - the one they really want for Christmas, but are just too scared to ask for - gets its butt-kicking oomph from a Nature Materials paper published only four years ago. It's taken that time for a battery cathode based on phosphate nanocrystals to rip its way from a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, through financing, design, development and manufacture in east Asia, to its current position, driving 36-volt power tools from Black & Decker - owner of the DeWalt professional-grade marque.
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