Pyroprotein-based electronic textiles with high thermal durability

Abstract: Electronic textiles (e-textiles) need to have high heat durability for various applications. However, current e-textiles are usually damaged by high-temperature processes. We report silk-based e-textiles fabricated by simple pyrolysis with axial stretching that demonstrate high electrical conductivity and thermal durability. The electrical conductivity of the proposed e-textiles was on the order of 103S/cm and the electrical characteristics were maintained even after heating and bending. Furthermore, we prepared e-textiles with various electronic properties, such as semiconducting, superconducting, and light-emitting properties, by depositing ZnO, MoSe2, and NbN onto the commercial silk-based e-textiles using sputtering and evaporation. We introduced a simple method for fabricating silk-based e-textiles with various electronic properties, which are compatible with the current textile industry.