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Fabrics represent a unique platform for seamlessly integrating electronics into everyday experiences. The advancements in functionalizing fabrics at both the single fibre level and within constructed fabrics have fundamentally altered their utility. The revolution in materials, structures, and functionality at the fibre level enables intimate and imperceptible integration, rapidly transforming fibres and fabrics into next-generation wearable devices and systems. In this review, we explore recent scientific and technological breakthroughs in smart fibre-enabled fabrics. We examine common challenges and bottlenecks in fibre materials, physics, chemistry, fabrication strategies, and applications that shape the future of wearable electronics. We propose a closed-loop smart fibre-enabled fabric ecosystem encompassing proactive sensing, interactive communication, data storage and processing, real-time feedback, and energy storage and harvesting, intended to tackle significant challenges in wearable technology. Finally, we envision computing fabrics as sophisticated wearable platforms with system-level attributes for data management, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and closed-loop intelligent networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the potential applications of semiconductor fibers in clinical and translational medicine. Semiconductor fibers have the ability to monitor and measure various physiological parameters, making them suitable for use in medical devices. They can be used for thermoregulation, pulse monitoring, and have potential applications in implantable sensors, neural interfaces, and tissue engineering. However, further research is needed to fully understand the biophysics of semiconductor fibers and their practical use in clinical settings. The study was supported by various funding sources and the authors declare no conflicts of interest. [Extracted from the article]

The integration of functional fibers into wearable devices by traditional methods is commonly completed in weaving. A new post‐weaving method of integrating fiber devices into textiles is needed to address the challenge of incorporating functional fiber into ready‐made garments without tearing down the clothing and re‐weaving. A 3D printing method to simultaneously fabricate and integrate highly stretchable conductive fiber into ready‐made garments with designed patterns is presented. The fabricated sheath–core fiber consists of a styrene–ethylene–butylene–styrene (SEBS) shell and a Ga–In–Sn alloy liquid metal core. The SEBS shell guarantees the high stretchability (up to 600%) and flexibility, while the liquid metal core offers a high conductivity maintained at large deformation. It is shown that sophisticated patterns, which have millimeter‐level‐resolution that are difficult to be integrated into textiles by weaving, and even more laborious to be incorporated into ready‐made garments, can now be easily modified and implemented into both textiles and ready‐made garments by a time‐saving and low‐cost 3D printing method. Utilizing the electrical characteristics of the fiber in pre‐designed patterns, on‐clothing soft electronics can be printed directly. A printed on‐clothing strain sensor, bending sensor, wireless charging coil, and a touch‐sensing network are demonstrated to show the potential applications in wearable electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in MXene (Ti3C2Tx) fibers, prepared from electrically conductive and mechanically strong MXene nanosheets, address the increasing demand of emerging yet promising electrode materials for the development of textile-based devices and beyond. However, to reveal the full potential of MXene fibers, reaching a balance between electrical conductivity and mechanical property is still the fundamental challenge, mainly due to the difficulties to further compact the loose MXene nanosheets. In this work, we demonstrate a continuous and controllable route to fabricate ultra-compact MXene fibers with an in-situ generated protective layer via the synergy of interfacial interactions and thermal drawing-induced stresses. The resulting ultra-compact MXene fibers with high orientation and low porosity exhibit not only excellent tensile strength and ultra-high toughness, but also high electrical conductivity. Then, we construct meter-scale MXene textiles using these ultra-compact fibers to achieve high-performance electromagnetic interference shielding and personal thermal management, accompanied by the high mechanical durability and stability even after multiple washing cycles. The demonstrated generic strategy can be applied to a broad range of nanostructured materials to construct functional fibers for large-scale applications in both space and daily lives. Forming compact layered nanostructures is key to achieving continuous MXene fibers with electrical and mechanical properties. Here, authors demonstrate ultra-compact high-performance MXene fibers via a controllable synergy of interfacial interactions and thermal drawing-induced stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the fundamental building block of optical fiber communication technology, thermally drawn optical fibers have fueled the development and prosperity of modern information society. However, the conventional step‐index configured silica optical fibers have scarcely altered since their invention. In recent years, thermally drawn multifunctional fibers have emerged as a new yet promising route to enable unprecedented development in information technology. By adopting the well‐developed preform‐to‐fiber manufacturing technique, a broad range of functional materials can be seamlessly integrated into a single fiber on a kilometer length scale to deliver sophisticated functions. Functions such as photodetection, imaging, acoustoelectric detection, chemical sensing, tactile sensing, biological probing, energy harvesting and storage, data storage, program operation, and information processing on fiber devices. In addition to the original light‐guiding function, these flexible fibers can be woven into fabrics to achieve large‐scale personal health monitoring and interpersonal communication. Thermally drawn multifunctional fibers have opened up a new stage for the next generation of information technology. This review article summarizes an overview of the basic concepts, fabrication processes, and developments of multifunctional fibers. It also highlights the significant progress and future development in information applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating micro/nanostructures on fibers is beneficial for extending the application range of fiber-based devices. To achieve this using thermal fiber drawing is particularly important for the mass production of longitudinally uniform fibers up to tens of kilometers. However, the current thermal fiber drawing technique can only fabricate one-directional micro/nano-grooves longitudinally due to structure elongation and polymer reflow. Here, we develop a direct imprinting thermal drawing (DITD) technique to achieve arbitrarily designed surface patterns on entire fiber surfaces with high resolution in all directions. Such a thermal imprinting process is simulated and confirmed experimentally. Key process parameters are further examined, showing a process feature size as small as tens of nanometers. Furthermore, nanopatterns are fabricated on fibers as plasmonic metasurfaces, and double-sided patterned fibers are produced to construct self-powered wearable touch sensing fabric, revealing the bright future of the DITD technology in multifunctional fiber-based devices, wearable electronics, and smart textiles. Creating micro/nanostructures on fibers is beneficial to many fiber-based devices, which remains a challenge in large-scale fabrication due to elongation and reflow. Here, the authors demonstrate a method for generating high-resolution, arbitrarily designed surface patterns on fiber during the thermal drawing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scalable and precisely controllable in‐fiber fabrication method, described by Lei Wei and co‐workers in article number 1703245, produces uniformly‐sized, high‐quality, and globally ordered spherical particles in a full spectrum of diameters from micro‐ to nano‐scale. Harnessing a fluid instability phenomenon in fiber drawing achieves spherical particles from a variety of materials with disparate optical, electronic, and thermoelectric properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]