Group photo of Jiangxi Ji'an Railway Bureau and SPT Laser staffIn recent years, based on the rapid development of multifunctional fiber material technology, more types of fibers have the functions of sensing, photoelectric conversion, energy harvesting and storage. With the increasing demand for textile wearable electronic products, multifunctional fibrous devices and smart fiber fabrics provide a new solution for them. However, the current problems of precise and efficient positioning, connection and assembly of various functional materials inside flexible fibers hinder the large-scale application of fiber devices.
Recently, the Energy Storage Research and Development Center of the Institute of Engineering Thermophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have proposed a new type of laser thermal effect-based precise control technology for intra-fiber particles, which breaks through the solid characteristics of fiber materials that are not conducive to internal processing and realizes precise movement and control of particles in solids, and assembles the semiconductor heterogeneous functional structure, which provides a new idea for the preparation of complex and efficient intra-fiber functional structures and devices.
The research uses the precise heating of carbon dioxide lasers to convert the solid fiber material into a liquid state and generate a precise controllable Marangoni heat flow inside the fiber. The particles integrated in the fiber can change position along with the heat flow of the fiber material, and the direction and speed of the movement of the particles can be controlled by modulating the laser. This breaks through the difficult problem that the inherent position of the substance in the solid fiber material cannot be precisely controlled, and makes it possible to construct more complex functional structural devices using the combination of substances inside the fiber. The method proposed in this study uses fluid as a carrier to manipulate particles, and has no selectivity in the structure, composition, size, and number of particles. This feature greatly expands the scope of application of the method. Based on the above principles, a method for fabricating homojunctions and heterojunctions using semiconductor material particles in fibers is obtained, which proves the ease of use and application prospects of the method in many fields such as photovoltaics, photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and energy storage.
Related results were published in "Nature-Communication". The research was supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ International Partnership Program and the Clean Energy Pilot Project.
