To date, the concept of “wearable electronics” has referred...

To date, the concept of “wearable electronics” has referred to accessories such as goggles that could project a big-screen TV image or glasses with a built-in 720p video recorder. The next step could be electronics built into the actual fabric of clothing. Extreme Tech reported last week that a team of multinational scientists has created electronic circuits and transistors out of cotton fibers. According to the researchers’ report, they created two kinds of transistors: a field-effect transistor, similar to those found in a CPU, and an electrochemical transistor, which is capable of switching at lower voltages, and thus better suited for wearable computers. To make conductive threads, the team coated the fibers with gold nanoparticles, followed by a conductive polymer, according to the article. The cotton wire was dipped into another polymer to make it a semiconductor, then dipped in a glycol coating to make it waterproof. According to the scientists, cotton yarns can be used to construct the basic building blocks of a computer circuit while still retaining flexibility. That could develop into one smart outfit.