Smart fabrics have been advancing rapidly in recent years and have previously been woven to create textile displays and other electronic devices. However, this generally requires specialised laboratory equipment or boutique microelectronic fabrication facilities, neither of which are practical for scaled up production.
“We could make these textiles in specialised microelectronics facilities, but these require billions of pounds of investment,” said Dr Sanghyo Lee, from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “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.”
To make smart fabrics compatible with conventional textile equipment like industrial looms, the Cambridge team first coated them with materials that can withstand stretching. The researchers then wove electronic, optoelectronic, sensing and energy fibre components together in different configurations mixed with conventional fibres. The fibre devices were interconnected by an automated laser welding method with electrically conductive adhesive. To illustrate the capabilities of the new fabrics, the team produced a 46-inch woven demonstrator display. The work is published in Science Advances.
Working in partnership with textile manufacturers, the team was 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. The researchers say it could be possible for large, flexible displays and monitors to be made on industrial looms, rather than in specialised electronics manufacturing facilities, which would make them far cheaper to produce.
“These companies have well-established manufacturing lines with high throughput fibre extruders and large weaving machines that can weave a metre square of textiles automatically,” said Lee. “So when we introduce the smart fibres to the process, the result is basically an electronic system that is manufactured exactly the same way other textiles are manufactured.”
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