Light-emitting fabrics integrated with structured polymer optical fibers treated with an infrared CO₂laser

Abstract

This paper describes woven fabrics made from polymer optical fibers (POF), which are treated with a CO 2 laser so that the resultant surface notches on the POFs facilitate side emission of light. The transmission and side-emitting behavior of POF with surface notches are studied in term of the variation in bending curvatures, which is related to end-usage of the woven fabrics as flexible displays, wearable phototherapy devices and fashion accessories. The measured power of transmission of light from the POF rapidly decreases with increasing bending curvature. However, the measured power of side-emission of light from the notched POFs remains almost constant at various bending curvatures within the experimental range. Theoretical analysis of the light propagation in a notched POF is conducted, which illustrates that more light is reflected from one side of the notch when the bending curvature is increased hence the transmission of the light is decreased. The theoretical and experimental results reach a good agreement.

Light-Emitting Textiles: Device Architectures, Working Principles, and Applications

“…Anyway, mechanical treatments cannot be precisely controlled and they are not reproducible, as a result, the light distribution is not uniform and different from sample to sample. The laser treatment is more precise than mechanical and chemical treatments and it can also be employed to obtain specific patterns, as reported by Shen et al [107]. Side emission from optical fibers can also be obtained via macrobending in a way to have a propagation angle higher than the critical angle and light emission out of the fiber.…”

“…Indeed, the microperforation and the damaging of the cladding induce light scattering and leakage through the cracks. Microperforation can be obtained by using different methods: notching [105,106], abrasion [105,106], laser micromachining [107,108], surface chemical etching [106,109], etc. In 2003, Harlin et al obtained light-emitting textiles with a conventional weaving machine by using polycarbonate fibers, and different mechanical methods were tested to induce microperforations [105].…”

Multifunctional Smart Optical Fibers: Materials, Fabrication, and Sensing Applications

“…They have been used for respiration monitoring [141]. As a cool light source, side-emitting POFs were woven into flexible fabrics as wearable phototherapy devices [142,143], showing promise for treatment of conditions such as neonatal Jaundice.…”

Evaluation of Illumination Intensity of Plastic Optical Fibres with Tio2 Particles by Laser Treatment

“…Surface abrasion and solvent etching are combined for the evaluation of side illumination of POFs [5], which display the improvement of side illumination intensity and decrease the mechanical properties. Notches are created on the surface of POFs to let the light escape [6]. Radiation scattering particles (like ZnO and Al 2 O 3 ) are embedded into cladding of POFs to enhance the side illumination intensity [7,8].…”