An international team of researchers has developed next-generation smart textiles that can be produced inexpensively, in any shape or size, using the same machines used to make the clothing we wear every day.
- They had previously demonstrated that woven displays can be made at large sizes, but these earlier examples were made using specialised manual laboratory equipment.
- Other smart textiles can be manufactured in specialised microelectronic fabrication facilities, but these are highly expensive and produce large volumes of waste.
- However, the team found that flexible displays and smart fabrics can be made much more cheaply, and more sustainably, by weaving electronic, optoelectronic, sensing and energy fibre components on the same industrial looms used to make conventional textiles.
The Research: The results, reported in the journal Science Advances, demonstrate how smart textiles could be an alternative to larger electronics in sectors including automotive, electronics, fashion and construction.
- Sanghyo Lee from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, was the paper’s first author.
- The research was supported in part by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation.
The Problem: Despite recent progress in the development of smart textiles, their functionality, dimensions and shapes have been limited by current manufacturing processes.
- Last year, some of the same researchers showed that if the fibres used in smart textiles were coated with materials that can withstand stretching, they could be compatible with conventional weaving processes. Using this technique, they produced a 46-inch woven demonstrator display.
- Now, they have shown that smart textiles can be made using automated processes, with no limits on their size or shape. Multiple types of fibre devices, including energy storage devices, light-emitting diodes, and transistors were fabricated, encapsulated, and mixed with conventional fibres, either synthetic or natural, to build smart textiles by automated weaving.
- The fibre devices were interconnected by an automated laser welding method with electrically conductive adhesive.
- The processes were all optimised to minimise damage to the electronic components, which in turn made the smart textiles durable enough to withstand the stretching of an industrial weaving machine.
- The encapsulation method was developed to consider the functionality of the fibre devices, and the mechanical force and thermal energy were investigated systematically to achieve the automated weaving and laser-based interconnection, respectively.
- The research team, working in partnership with textile manufacturers, were able to produce test patches of smart textiles of roughly 50x50 centimetres, although this can be scaled up to larger dimensions and produced in large volumes.
What They Said:
We could make these textiles in specialised microelectronics facilities, but these require billions of pounds of investment. In addition, manufacturing smart textiles in this way is highly limited, since everything has to be made on the same rigid wafers used to make integrated circuits, so the maximum size we can get is about 30 centimetres in diameter.
— Sanghyo Lee (first author)
Department of Engineering
University of Cambridge
The flexibility of these textiles is absolutely amazing. Not just in terms of their mechanical flexibility, but the flexibility of the approach, and to deploy sustainable and eco-friendly electronics manufacturing platforms that contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions and enable real applications of smart textiles in buildings, car interiors and clothing. Our approach is quite unique in that way.
— Luigi Occhipinti (co-lead author)
Department of Engineering
University of Cambridge
