The innovation could one day lead to longer-lasting implants such as smart stents, drug-release systems and prosthetics that never need a battery replacement and are precisely tailored to a patient. It would involve no active electronics in the implant.

The team says the research is early but promising, as there are no known devices that can gather energy from both fluid movement and wireless signals, which is enabled by the mix of semiconductive diamonds into a metallic material.

The research article, “Additively manufactured diamond for energy scavenging and wireless power transfer in implantable devices,” is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.