A European research team claims to have created the first example of a transparent and flexible electrode fully embedded in a yarn, which could open up new applications for wearable technologies. Their technique involves the transfer of monolayer graphene, grown by chemical vapor deposition on copper foil, to fibers commonly used by the textile industry. The team is comprised of researchers from the U.K.'s University of Exeter, the Universities of Lisbon and Aveiro in Portugal and the Belgian Textile Research Centre in Gent. Published in Scientific Reports, their research points out that the electrical, mechanical and optical properties of monolayer graphene make it highly attractive as a transparent electrode for applications in wearable electronics. Transparent and flexible electrodes are already widely used in plastics and glass.

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