Who would have imagined that silk, a status symbol for millennia that has lent its name to trade routes of yore, would find an application beyond luxury and fashion?
Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, are suggesting that silk — of course, a certain ‘lab-made’ variety — can be used in microelectronics.
Imagine strands of silk instead of copper wires carrying electric signals back and forth!
Silk is made of proteins, like all animal fur, hair and wool. A special type of protein in it, called silk fibroin, has properties that can be tapped for electronics. Electronic components made with silk are biodegradable and can be used in wearable devices.
While the potential use of silk in microelectronics has been known for some time, there were practical hurdles along the way — it was not possible to actually make the devices because the molecular structure of silk fibroin is disorderly. PNNL scientists cracked this by carefully embedding a layer of silk in an orderly manner on a sheet of graphene.
To bring in a bit of science, in microelectronics the electric potential at the surface of a material matters. If you can gain control over this potential when designing devices like sensors and transistors, you are in business.
PNNL research may pave the way for electronics to pass through its own silk route.
