The flexible and stable "hair" sensors can be used independently or woven into fabric, transforming passive clothing into functional "smart" wear. These fibers have broad application prospects in future intelligent wearables, the metaverse, artificial intelligence, extreme environment sensors, brain-computer interfaces, and other fields.
One-dimensional fibers, as a new form of inorganic semiconductor materials, offer advantages of fineness and softness. They provide possibilities for seamless integration of flexible electronic devices with daily clothing, creating non-intrusive links between technology and daily life.
Rapid and large-scale production of high-quality semiconductor fibers has been a significant challenge. The research team, inspired by traditional optical fiber preparation and thermal drawing processes, extended the single material fiber thermal pulling method to the material preparation process. They addressed issues of stress mismatch and fluid instability from the perspectives of solid mechanics and fluid mechanics, achieving a production strategy for silicon/germanium semiconductor fibers, producing several meters to dozens of meters per minute.
Using a convergent thermal drawing method, the team built interfaces between insulators, conductors, and semiconductors within a single hair-thin fiber.
"This method completes device assembly and encapsulation simultaneously," said Prof. CHEN Ming, one of the corresponding authors from SIAT, "creating photoelectric fiber detectors that perform excellently under extreme conditions, like three kilometers underwater."
Research Report:High-quality semiconductor fibres via mechanical design
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