Electromagnetic Components Realized on Conductive Wires: A Copper vs. E-Thread Comparison

E-textile embroidery is recently emerging as a highly promising substitute to copper for diverse applications that require flexibility, conformality and robustness (wearables, military, smart homes, and more). Studies have long contrasted the performance of e-textile conductive surfaces vs. their copper-based counterparts. However, several electromagnetic (EM) components, such as coils or wire antennas, rely on conductive wires rather than conductive sheets/surfaces. In this work, we report the first comparison of e-threads vs. copper wires for EM applications across the entire 1 kHz to 10 GHz range. At low frequencies, coils made of e-threads and copper wires show similar self and mutual inductance, though resistance values are 2 to 9 times higher for e-threads. At high frequencies, transmission lines made of e-thread and copper wire show good agreement. Notably, e-threads are over 4 times more lightweight as compared to copper. In future, these findings can be leveraged to translate various copper-wire EM components into e-textiles.