Your walking clothing could be powering your GPS system or any of your mobile devices before you know it. Pardon I here you say, it’s true as a research team at Penn State University in America have developed the first ever fibre-optic solar-cell.

This new development is similar in appearance to those normal fibre cables that are made from flexible glass fibres, but these new solar cell versions have the potential to create wearable energy sources in the near future. They are thinner than a human hair and have been injected with a composition of silicon under high pressure to turn them into solar cells.

The vast majority of solar-cells are two dimensional, in that they are normally applied to flat, hard surfaces, normally because of structural limitations, so only receive light from one direction. The combination of this three dimensional cell and its flexible nature being a fibre means that it can be produced in strands and so can be woven together.

Therefore, we could be wearing a flexible power source that has been woven directly into our clothing. The U.S. military is already interested in producing clothing incorporating this new technology to be used by soldiers when they are in the field

The fibres have yet to be combined into a piece of woven material, so it is still unsure whether it will actually stand up to the stresses faced by regular clothing without breaking down. However, it is still a significant advancement for solar energy as the 3D element shows that it is capable of absorbing light from any direction, making it more efficient than its predecessors.

So when the technology is successfully woven together, we would be able to wear shirts, jackets, trousers and shorts that are able to recharge any mobile device. No more having to carry spare batteries in our packs, but living in the UK and our ever changing weather, maybe it won’t affect us and our walking clothing too much after all.