Shirts
That Stop Bullets (7.24.03) - Nanotechnologists have come up with a super
strong, flexible fiber that can conduct heat and electricity, is light as
a cotton shirt, and bulletproof.
Clothes
That Change Color (11.19.02) - A new thread might make retail returns
things of the past. You’ll be able to change the colors of your clothes
to suit yourself, whenever you please.
Electronic fabric is showing up on museum walls and in art galleries. But you
can’t start wearing it yet. As this ScienCentral News video reports,
smart fashions will need nanotechnology, the science of making molecules do
useful things, to be ready to wear.
Smart Outfits
Electronic textiles are fabrics that are wired to transfer information within
a piece of clothing. Right now, you can buy jackets with disc players and
controls sewn in—but designers envision e-wear
that will heat or cool its wearer, monitor vital signs, and change color on
command.
The Cooper
Hewitt National Design Museum’s National Design Triennial includes
a wall hanging that is an example of what Orth calls Electric
Plaid™. At first glance, the piece looks like a hand-woven, multicolored
textile. The flip side reveals a computer display that can program conductive
fibers woven into the textile. On command, the fibers heat and cool the textile’s
colors, which are made of inks whose colors respond to temperature. The fibers
can be programmed to change the textile’s colors in several sequences,
so that different patterns subtly form on the wall hanging.
Orth says her work is of particular interest to the military for what she calls
“interactive camouflage.” Her concepts could produce a military
uniform wired to change color when a soldier is standing in jungle overgrowth,
for example, or against a stone or brick wall. But Orth says that right now,
the electronics that control her fabrics’ colors are too bulky to wear.
Before smart clothing can be ready to wear, nanotechnology, the science of
working at the scale of only a few atoms, must transform electronics.
Stormer and Columbia chemist Colin
Nuckolls are exploring the use of molecules to switch the flow of electrons
on and off, as silicon semiconductors do today in Orth’s control panels.
So far, the Columbia researchers have made nanoscale electrodes that can “plug
in” to molecules and measure electron flow. But, Stormer warns, the
dream of molecular transistors—and very smart fashions—is still years away.
Stormer’s work has been published most recently in Physical Review
Letters and Science. Nuckolls’ research has appeared in the
Journal of the American Chemical Society. Orth’s work was presented
most recently at the fall 2002 meeting of the Materials Research Society.
Electric Plaid™ is on view at the Cooper Hewitt through January 25,
2004.
Stormer and Nuckolls’ research is underwritten by the National Science
Foundation and the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic
Research. Orth’s work is supported by International Fashion Machines.
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