Textile Electronic Circuits from Laser-Patterned Conductive Fabric

Textile electronics have shown very promising results in remote health monitoring or personal thermal management. Meanwhile, textile-based generators are researched to harvest energy from human motion and supply the electronics required for signal acquisition and transmission. Hence, there is a need to fully integrate electronic circuits directly onto textile to achieve self-powered smart garments. Herein, a thermoadhesive conductive fabric is considered to realize textile electronic circuits. A laser-based method is developed to pattern the circuit design. After optimizing the spatial resolution, the electrical and mechanical resistances of the resulting textile conductive tracks are evaluated. Heterogeneous interconnections with rigid electronic components are considered with different methods such as soldering and bonding. The interconnections are characterized and compared regarding their electrical contact resistances. Finally, demonstrators are realized to show a proof of concept of "textronic circuits."