Spider silk is used to suspend inertial confinement fusion targets during laser ignition, as it remains considerably elastic and has a high energy to break at temperatures as low as 10-20K. In addition, it is made from "light" atomic number elements that won't emit x-raysduring irradiation that could preheat the target so that the pressure differential required for fusion is not achieved.[87]

In 2011, spider silk fibers were used in the field of optics to generate very fine diffraction patterns over N-slit interferometric signals utilized in optical communications.[85] In 2012, spider silk fibers were used to create a set of violin strings.[86]