Researchers in the United States, Italy, and France have invented transistors made from cotton fibers that could be woven into clothing capable of measuring pollutants, T-shirts that display information, and carpets that sense how many people are crossing them.
“We want to create a seamless interface between electronics and textiles,” says Juan Hinestroza, director of the Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y.
Instead of attaching sensors or processors to clothing after the garments are fully formed, it would be more effective to incorporate such devices directly into the fabrics, says Annalisa Bonfiglio, an EE professor at the University of Cagliari, in Italy, whose student Giorgio Mattana worked on the cotton in Hinestroza's lab.
To make a fiber conductive, the team coated each strand with gold nanoparticles and added a thin layer of a conductive polymer. They created an organic electrochemical transistor and an organic field-effect transistor by doping the conductive fibers with a semiconducting polymer.
"For the moment, I think the most realistic application is in the sensor area," she says. For instance, firefighters' uniforms might be able to detect dangerous chemicals, while security personnel could be alerted to airborne signatures of explosives or drugs. Garments might also monitor heart rate or perspiration. Inside homes and businesses, fabrics—in the form of carpeting, wall coverings, and upholstery—could keep track of humidity levels and allergens.
"If you think about how many fibers you have in your T-shirt, and how many interconnections you have between the weft and the warp of the fabric, you could get pretty decent computing power," says Hinestroza.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/electronic-cotton
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