Ellen Phiddian
A team of Chinese and Singaporean scientists have figured out how to make a durable ultra-long smart fibre that could be woven into a range of wearable electronics.
The researchers have demonstrated its use in beanies that sense traffic light changes for the visually impaired, more comfortable heart rate monitors, and a jumper that can send and receive digital information.
A description of the fibre is published in Nature.
The researchers first examined how semiconductor-based fibres are currently manufactured, and the faults that can occur from this process.
They used this information to develop a semiconductor-manufacturing process that can produce higher-performance flexible fibres.
Their fibres, based on silicon and germanium, are optoelectronic – they can detect and emit light.
According to the research team’s paper, “the mechanical robustness of the optoelectronic fibres allows them to be woven into large-scale functional fabrics while maintaining favourable features such as conformability, washability and permeability”.
To demonstrate this, they wove an optoelectronic fabric that was several metres in length, followed by a series of devices that their fabric could be used in.
One was a knitted hat that sensed changes in traffic lights and forwarded them to an app on a smartphone. The researchers suggest this could be useful for helping those with vision impairment.
Another was a cloth-based heart rate monitor that wrapped around the wrist, which performed at similar levels to commercial monitors, but more flexible and comfortable to wear.
The fibres are waterproof: the researchers were able to wash the fabric 10 times without any degradation.
