Chameleon Clothing to be a Reality?

Tuesday 09th of January 2007 07:19:24 PM

Chameleon Clothing to be a Reality?

William Gibson’s 1984 novel, Neuromancer, featured a character with a very strange suit of clothing. Lupus Yonderboy, the Panther Modern leader had a ‘mimetic polycarbon suit’, which could record backgrounds, then replay them on his suit, giving it a chameleon effect.

All this sounds too much like science fiction, but to Greg Sotzing of the University of Connecticut in Storrs, a real-life polycarbon suit is not far away. Using threads of electrochromic polymers that change colour when an electrical charge is applied to them, he may have invented the first ever polycarbon fabric.

Different coloured threads are knitted or woven together into a T-Shirtor blanket, along with thin wires, connected to a battery pack and controller. By weaving the wires into the material, the fabric is divided into pixels, and by applying a current through these wires, the electro-reactive threads change colour according to the voltage applied. Different voltages can be applied to each wire, so separate pixels can be changed. You could even connect a digital camera, which would allow the T-Shirtor blanket to mimic your surroundings.

The electrochromic polymers can absorb light across a range of visible wavelengths, thanks to the electrons in their chemical bonds. By applying an electrical voltage to the polymers, the energy levels of these electrons changes, and they absorb light on a different wavelength, changing the threads colour. By reversing the current, the change in energy is reversed, and the original colours reappear.

At the present time, only polymers that change from orange to blue, and from red to blue, have been created, but Sotzing and his team are hoping to create threads that change from red, blue and green to white.