Shine on your own with luminescent fabrics

If you know our Lumeis range of LED, you also know that light is a subject that has sincerely aroused our interest!

For this, we wowed the news of a big step taken in the production of the first luminescent fabrics by a group of researchers at both Fundan University and University of California in Los Angeles.

Among the possibilities offered so far, OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes), which have allowed the production of flexible monitors and flat screens, were equipped with a high operating power, slightly suitable for wearable devices use, while the fibers obtained using PLEC (electrochemical light-emitting polymers) could not reach the length necessary for possible applications, in addition to the difficulties in integrating them into the tissues.

In this article, published in Nature Photonic, Qibing Pei, one of the pioneers in this field, and his colleagues, describes instead a technique to produce luminescent fibers that exceed the obstacles just mentioned.

To obtain this new fiber they start from a steel wire with a diameter of just 127 microns, around which is created a coating of PLEC, formed by three layers: one of zinc oxide nanoparticles, one luminescent layer and a carbon nanotube which acts as a transparent anode.

Thanks to the electron transfer properties of zinc oxide, when a voltage is applied between the steel wire that acts as a cathode and the nanotube that acts as anode, the wire starts to generate light, capable of reaching the maximum brightness within of a few minutes.

These luminescent fibers are flexible enough to be integrated in different tissues, without losing their luminescent capacity, even if the last obstacle to be overcome is the increase of their operation stability. At present, in fact, once it reaches the maximum luminosity, it slowly begins to wane…

If you think you have to renew your look, we must inform you that, in the prototypes so far, the emitted light is only yellow or blue, but the researchers explain that, with some variation in the method of preparation, you can get other colors soon.