PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD MIT researchers have created a light-sensitive fabric that can detect and display simple images. The material, woven from tiny threads that incorporate semiconductors, could find its way into real-world implementations ranging from military clothing to radio telescopes.
“The fiber is a photo detector. Light is converted to an electrical signal at the point it contacts the fiber. That lets us extract the information," said Yoel Fink, associate professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT. “We showed you could incorporate semiconductors and geometries that have never been observed before, that are far below anything that has ever been done in a fiber,” the professor said.
Each thread starts out as a cylinder made up of layers of different materials about the width of a broomstick. The cylinder is then heated in an oven and pulled, like a piece of taffy—or optical fiber—into a thin filament. (See diagram here). Each strand contains eight separate photo detectors, each capable of a different function.
The research was begun at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense, which wanted to find ways to make soldiers’ equipment, including the uniform, more functional without adding weight. Although funded by the military, the results could find their way into many other fields.
The cost of making a single thread commercially should be reasonable—about the cost of making an optical fiber. However, it probably would not be necessary to craft an entire swatch of material from the threads. Instead, only a few threads could be incorporated into conventional fabric, which also could keep costs down, Fink explained.
Although the current threads focus on light, future versions could pay attention to other inputs, including sound waves and radio waves. A radio telescope constructed from a mesh incorporating the threads is not out of the question, according to Fink.
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