Researchers in the US have created a battery capable of being recharged hundreds of thousands of times without showing signs of wear, spelling a potential end to electronics rendered useless by dead cells.

The invention could be used in smartphones, tablets, cars, computers and spacecraft. It could help prolong the lifespan of devices which currently fail after just a few years.

Designed at the University of California, Irvine, the battery is made up of gold nanowires coated in a manganese dioxide shell, and set in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel.

The use of nanowires, which are thousands of times thinner than human hair, highly conductive and have a large surface area, in batteries is not new.

Lithium-ion batteries, used in most smartphones, are also made up of nanowires, but they are fragile and prone to breaking after repeated charges.

As such, batteries are currently designed to withstand a certain number of "cycles" - the equivalent of a battery fully draining.