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conferenceseries.com
March 20-22, 2017 Orlando, USA
3rd International Conference on
Smart Materials & Structures
Volume 6, Issue 2 (Suppl) J Material Sci Eng
ISSN: 2169-0022 JME, an open access journal Smart Materials 2017
March 20-22, 2017
Wearable electronics based on graphene-coated conductive textile fibers
Elias Torres Alonso1, Ana Neves1, Saverio Russo1, Monica F Craciun1, Daniela P Rodrigues2 and Helena Alves2
1University of Exeter, UK
2University of Aveiro, Portugal
The concept of smart-textiles is witnessing a rapid development with recent advances in nanotechnology andmaterials engineering.
Bearing in mind that the concept of textiles is much wider than clothes and garments, the potential is immense. While most
current commercial applications rely on conventional hardware simply mounted onto fibers or fabrics, a new approach to e-textiles
consisting in using functionalized textiles for several technological applications has the potential to change the paradigm of wearable
electronics completely. Conducting fibers are an important component of any e-textile, not only because they can be used as wiring
for simple textile-based electronic component, but also because they can be used to build electronic devices directly on textile fibers.
We have reported a new method to coat insulating textile fibers with monolayer graphene to make them conductive while preserving
their appearance. There are a number of factors that can greatly influence the sheet resistance achieved by graphene-coated textile
fibers. In order to understand the influence of the topography of the fibers on the effectiveness of the graphene coating, an extensive
study encompassing microscopy techniques like Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Thermal Microscopy, as well as Raman
spectroscopy was performed. This method has proven to be a versatile tool to achieve flexible, transparent and conducting fibers
of different materials, sizes and shapes. The first applications of electronic devices built on such fibers are demonstrated with an
alternating current electroluminescent device, following previous work in our group on similar devices in flexible substrates. This
opens up the way for the realization of wearable devices on textiles.
Biography
Elias Torres Alonso has a background in Physics with a specialization in Physics of Materials in the Complutense University in Madrid. After that, he obtained an
Erasmus fellowship to spend one year in Lund University in Sweden, where he worked with III-V Nanowires. At the moment, Elias is working towards his PhD in
Physics/Engineering at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom, where he uses various 2D materials to create flexible, wearable and scalable next-generation
electronic and optoelectronic devices within the group of Prof Monica Craciun and Prof Saverio Russo.
Elias Torres Alonso et al., J Material Sci Eng 2017, 6:2 (Suppl)