Washington, May 21 (PTI): An 18-year-old Indian-American girl has invented a super-capacitor device that could potentially charge a cellphone in less than 20 seconds.

Eesha Khare from Saratoga, California, was awarded the Young Scientist Award by the Intel Foundation for developing a tiny device that fits inside mobile phone batteries and charges them in 20-30 seconds.

The so-called super-capacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds the charge for a long time, NBC News reported.

Khare has been awarded $ 50,000 for developing the device. She has also attracted the attention of tech giant Google for her potentially revolutionary invention.

According to Khare, the device lasts for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles as against 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries.

“My cellphone battery always dies,” she said when asked about what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Super-capacitors allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry and “really work at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields.”

The gadget has so far only been tested on an  light-emitting diode (LED) light, but the good news is that there are ample chances of it working successfully in other devices like mobile phones, the report said.

Khare sees it fitting

inside cellphones and other portable electronic devices. “It is also flexible, so it can be used in roll-up displays and clothing and fabric. It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense,” Khare added.