Abstract
Deciphering how the dielectric properties of textile materials are orchestrated by their internal components has far-reaching implications. For the development of textile-based electronics, which have gained ever-increasing attention for their uniquely combined features of electronics and traditional fabrics, both performance and form factor are critically dependent on the dielectric properties. The knowledge of the dielectric properties of textile materials is thus crucial in successful design and operation of textile-based electronics. While the dielectric properties of textile materials could be estimated to some extent from the compositional profiles, recent studies have identified various additional factors that have also substantial influence. From the viewpoint of materials characterization, such dependence of the dielectric properties of textile materials have given rise to a new possibility—information on various internal components could be, upon successful correlation, extracted by measuring the dielectric properties. In view of these considerable implications, this invited review paper summarizes various fundamental theories and principles related to the dielectric properties of textile materials. In order to provide an imperative basis for uncovering various factors that intricately influence the dielectric properties of textile materials, the foundations of the dielectrics and polarization mechanisms are first recapitulated, followed by an overview on the concept of homogenization and the dielectric mixture theory. The principal advantages, challenges and opportunities in the analytical approximations of the dielectric properties of textile materials are then discussed based on the findings from the recent literature, and finally a variety of characterization methods suitable for measuring the dielectric properties of textile materials are described. It is among the objectives of this paper to build a practical signpost for scientists and engineers in this rapidly evolving, cross-disciplinary field.
Highlights
The dielectric properties, which are measures of the internal responses of electrically insulating materials under alternating electric fields, offer a broad range of knowledge
The dielectric properties of textile materials have been featured for the development of textile-based electronics such as antennas and transmission lines for wireless communication [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23], rectennas for energy harvesting [24,25,26], and capacitive sensors for pressure, strain and moisture sensing [27,28,29,30] and health monitoring [31], as well as for the development of microwave-absorbing fabrics for various electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding applications [32,33]
Offering both electronic functionalities and traditional fabric-like comfort, the textile-based approach has a great potential to overcome the technical challenges associated with the conventional, non-flexible electronics [34,35,36,37]
Summary
The dielectric properties, which are measures of the internal responses of electrically insulating materials under alternating electric fields, offer a broad range of knowledge. Non-polar dielectrics are dielectrics that do not possess a permanent dipole moment; they become polarized in an electric field by relative displacement of electrons with respect to the nuclei [43,44]. This phenomenon is called electronic polarization (Figure 1), and the resonant process is typically observed at optical frequencies.
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