Multifunctional Textiles Enabled by Simultaneous Interaction with Infrared and Microwave Electromagnetic Waves

Conventional textiles keep the body warm and provide an aesthetic appearance for human beings, while they are insufficient for military and civil applications in harsh environments. Multifunctional textiles that are capable of creating infrared (IR) camouflage, electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding, and personal warming by interacting with both IR and microwave electromagnetic waves (EMWs) are developed. The inorganic-organic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)/Ag/PTFE (IO-PAP) building blocks are deposited on the polyurethane (PU)-coated textiles using an eco-friendly magnetron sputtering technique, where a smooth and durable Ag layer is grown, circumventing the large roughness and less connection between fibers in conventional textiles. Using the IO-PAP building blocks, the ultralow IR emissivity and the ultrahigh microwave reflectance are achieved for effective IR camouflage and EMI shielding, respectively, together with satisfactory mechanical robustness. The EMI shielding effectiveness is further improved to 73 dB through employing a Fabry-Perot-based double-sided PAP (D-PAP) architecture. The D-PAP-coated textiles also exhibit personal warming, increasing the skin temperature by 2.7 degrees C compared with conventional cotton through reflecting thermal radiation of human bodies and mitigating radiative heat loss from textiles. This work will inspire the ultra-band EMW engineering of textiles for realizing advanced functionalities in a way of eco-friendly and scalable manufacture.