abstract
Conducting fibres are essential to the development of e-textiles. We demonstrate a method to make common insulating textile fibres conductive, by coating them with graphene. The resulting fibres display sheet resistance values as low as 600 Omega sq(-1), demonstrating that the high conductivity of graphene is not lost when transferred to textile fibres. An extensive microscopic study of the surface of graphene-coated fibres is presented. We show that this method can be employed to textile fibres of different materials, sizes and shapes, and to different types of graphene. These graphene-based conductive fibres can be used as a platform to build integrated electronic devices directly in textiles.
keywords
CHEMICAL-VAPOR-DEPOSITION; FEW-LAYER GRAPHENE; WEARABLE ELECTRONICS; MONOLAYER GRAPHENE; PLASMA TREATMENT; TRANSPARENT; ADHESION; DEVICES; SURFACE; GROWTH
subject category
Science & Technology - Other Topics
authors
Neves, AIS; Rodrigues, DP; De Sanctis, A; Alonso, ET; Pereira, MS; Amaral, VS; Melo, LV; Russo, S; de Schrijver, I; Alves, H; Craciun, MF
our authors
Ana Isabel Soares Neves
Post-doc Fellowship
Daniela Maria Porfírio Rodrigues
Research Fellowship
Helena Alves
Principal Researcher
Maria João Portela e Sá Pereira
Post-Doc Fellowship
Vitor Brás Sequeira Amaral
Full professorGroups
G1 - Porous Materials and Nanosystems
G2 - Photonic, Electronic and Magnetic Materials
G4 - Renewable Materials and Circular Economy
acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr Yat-Tarng (Tommy) Shyng for the non-contact scanning measurements and would like to acknowledge financial support from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC grants EP/J000396/1, EP/K017160, EP/K010050/1, EP/G036101/1, EP/M002438/1, EP/M001024/1), the Royal Society Travel Exchange Grants 2012 and 2013, the European Commission FP7-ICT-2013-613024-GRASP and H2020-MSCA-IF-2015-704963, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), co-financed by FEDER (PT2020 Partnership Agreement), under contracts PTDC/QEQ-SUP/1413/2012, RECI/CTM-CER/0336/2012, IF/01088/2014, BI/UI89/2015, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007679 (UID/CTM/50011/2013) and COMPETE:FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027465.