Abstract
The emergence of wearable electronics and optoelectronics requires the development of devices that are not only highly flexible but can also be woven into textiles to offer a truly integrated solution. Here, we report a colour-tunable, weavable fibre-shaped polymer light-emitting electrochemical cell (PLEC). The fibre-shaped PLEC is fabricated using all-solution-based processes that can be scaled up for practical applications. The design has a coaxial structure comprising a modified metal wire cathode and a conducting aligned carbon nanotube sheet anode, with an electroluminescent polymer layer sandwiched between them. The fibre shape offers unique and promising advantages. For example, the luminance is independent of viewing angle, the fibre-shaped PLEC can provide a variety of different and tunable colours, it is lightweight, flexible and wearable, and it can potentially be woven into light-emitting clothes for the creation of smart fabrics.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Meier, S. B. et al. Light-emitting electrochemical cells: recent progress and future prospects. Mater. Today 17, 217–223 (2014).
Tordera, D. et al. Simple, fast, bright, and stable light sources. Adv. Mater. 24, 897–900 (2012).
Moran-Mirabal, J. M. et al. Electrospun light-emitting nanofibres. Nano Lett. 7, 458–463 (2007).
Shao, Y., Bazan, G. C. & Heeger, A. J. Long-lifetime polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells. Adv. Mater. 19, 365–370 (2007).
Pei, Q., Yu, G., Zhang, C., Yang, Y. & Heeger, A. J. Polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells. Science 269, 1086–1088 (1995).
Liang, J., Li, L., Niu, X., Yu, Z. & Pei, Q. Elastomeric polymer light-emitting devices and displays. Nature Photon. 7, 817–824 (2013).
Gustafsson, G. et al. Flexible light-emitting diodes made from soluble conducting polymers. Nature 357, 477–479 (1992).
Li, L. et al. Efficient flexible phosphorescent polymer light-emitting diodes based on silver nanowire–polymer composite electrode. Adv. Mater. 23, 5563–5567 (2011).
Jiang, J. X. et al. High-efficiency white-light-emitting devices from a single polymer by mixing singlet and triplet emission. Adv. Mater. 18, 1769–1773 (2006).
Höfle, S., Schienle, A., Bruns, M., Lemmer, U. & Colsmann, A. Enhanced electron injection into inverted polymer light-emitting diodes by combined solution-processed zinc oxide/polyethylenimine interlayers. Adv. Mater. 26, 2750–2754 (2014).
Ying, L., Ho, C.-L., Wu, H., Cao, Y. & Wong, W.-Y. White polymer light-emitting devices for solid-state lighting: materials, devices, and recent progress. Adv. Mater. 26, 2459–2473 (2014).
Wong, W. Y., Zhou, G. J., Yu, X. M., Kwok, H. S. & Tang, B. Z. Amorphous diphenylaminofluorene-functionalized iridium complexes for high-efficiency electrophosphorescent light-emitting diodes. Adv. Funct. Mater. 16, 838–846 (2006).
Reineke, S. et al. White organic light-emitting diodes with fluorescent tube efficiency. Nature 459, 234–238 (2009).
Uoyama, H., Goushi, K., Shizu, K., Nomura, H. & Adachi, C. Highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes from delayed fluorescence. Nature 492, 234–238 (2012).
Groves, C. Organic light-emitting diodes: bright design. Nature Mater. 12, 597–598 (2013).
Sun, Y. & Forrest, S. R. Enhanced light out-coupling of organic light-emitting devices using embedded low-index grids. Nature Photon. 2, 483–487 (2008).
Han, T.-H. et al. Extremely efficient flexible organic light-emitting diodes with modified graphene anode. Nature Photon. 6, 105–110 (2012).
White, M. S. et al. Ultrathin, highly flexible and stretchable PLEDs. Nature Photon. 7, 811–816 (2013).
Wu, H. B. et al. Efficient single active layer electrophosphorescent white polymer light-emitting diodes. Adv. Mater. 20, 696–702 (2008).
Kabra, D., Lu, L. P., Song, M. H., Snaith, H. J. & Friend, R. H. Efficient single-layer polymer light-emitting diodes. Adv. Mater. 22, 3194–3198 (2010).
Yook, K. S. & Lee, J. Y. Small molecule host materials for solution processed phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes. Adv. Mater. 26, 4218–4233 (2014).
Pei, Q., Yang, Y., Yu, G., Zhang, C. & Heeger, A. J. Polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells: in situ formation of a light-emitting p–n junction. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 118, 3922–3929 (1996).
Yu, Z., Niu, X., Liu, Z. & Pei, Q. Intrinsically stretchable polymer light-emitting devices using carbon nanotube–polymer composite electrodes. Adv. Mater. 23, 3989–3994 (2011).
Gao, J. & Dane, J. Planar polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells with extremely large interelectrode spacing. Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 3027–3029 (2003).
Sandström, A., Asadpoordarvish, A., Enevold, J. & Edman, L. Spraying light: ambient-air fabrication of large-area emissive devices on complex-shaped surfaces. Adv. Mater. 26, 4975–4980 (2014).
Yang, Z., Deng, J., Sun, X., Li, H. & Peng, H. Stretchable, wearable dye-sensitized solar cells. Adv. Mater. 26, 2643–2647 (2014).
Yu, D. et al. Scalable synthesis of hierarchically structured carbon nanotube–graphene fibres for capacitive energy storage. Nature Nanotech. 9, 555–562 (2014).
Lee, M. R. et al. Solar power wires based on organic photovoltaic materials. Science 324, 232–235 (2009).
Kou, L. et al. Coaxial wet-spun yarn supercapacitors for high-energy density and safe wearable electronics. Nature Commun. 5, 3754 (2014).
Abouraddy, A. F. et al. Towards multimaterial multifunctional fibres that see, hear, sense and communicate. Nature Mater. 6, 336–347 (2007).
Yamada, T. et al. A stretchable carbon nanotube strain sensor for human-motion detection. Nature Nanotech. 6, 296–301 (2011).
Gao, W. et al. Direct laser writing of micro-supercapacitors on hydrated graphite oxide films. Nature Nanotech. 6, 496–500 (2011).
Sekitani, T. & Someya, T. Stretchable, large-area organic electronics. Adv. Mater. 22, 2228–2246 (2010).
Sekitani, T. et al. Stretchable active-matrix organic light-emitting diode display using printable elastic conductors. Nature Mater. 8, 494–499 (2009).
Zhang, Z. et al. A lightweight polymer solar cell textile that functions when illuminated from either side. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 53, 11571–11574 (2014).
Granström, M. & Inganäs, O. White light emission from a polymer blend light emitting diode. Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, 147–149 (1996).
Shen, Z., Burrows, P. E., Bulović, V., Forrest, S. R. & Thompson, M. E. Three-colour, tunable, organic light-emitting devices. Science 276, 2009–2011 (1997).
Parthasarathy, G., Gu, G. & Forrest, S. R. A full-colour transparent metal-free stacked organic light emitting device with simplified pixel biasing. Adv. Mater. 11, 907–910 (1999).
Sandström, A., Dam, H. F., Krebs, F. C. & Edman, L. Ambient fabrication of flexible and large-area organic light-emitting devices using slot-die coating. Nature Commun. 3, 1002 (2012).
Zhang, Z. et al. Integrated polymer solar cell and electrochemical supercapacitor in a flexible and stable fibre format. Adv. Mater. 26, 466–470 (2014).
Zhang, M. et al. Strong, transparent, multifunctional, carbon nanotube sheets. Science 309, 1215–1219 (2005).
O'Connor, B., An, K. H., Zhao, Y., Pipe, K. P. & Shtein, M. Fibre shaped light emitting device. Adv. Mater. 19, 3897–3900 (2007).
Sandström, A., Matyba, P. & Edman, L. Yellow-green light-emitting electrochemical cells with long lifetime and high efficiency. Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 053303 (2010).
Edman, L. et al. Single-component light-emitting electrochemical cell with improved stability. Appl. Phys. Lett. 82, 3961–3963 (2003).
Dane, J. & Gao, J. Imaging the degradation of polymer light-emitting devices. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 3905–3907 (2004).
Zhang, Y. & Gao, J. Lifetime study of polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells. J. Appl. Phys. 100, 084501 (2006).
Liu, D. et al. Solid-state, polymer-based fibre solar cells with carbon nanotube electrodes. ACS Nano 6, 11027–11034 (2012).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2011CB932503), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21225417, 61136003), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (12nm0503200), the Fok Ying Tong Education Foundation, the Program for Special Appointments of Professors at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning and the Program for Outstanding Young Scholars from the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Z.Z., Q.P. and H.P. discussed and designed the experiment. K.G. carried out the performance tests. Y.L., X.L., G.G., H.L., Y.L., F.Z., Q.Z., B.W. and H.P. participated in materials synthesis, device fabrication and data processing. Z.Z. and H.P. wrote the paper. H.P. supervised the project.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
Supplementary information (PDF 3609 kb)
Supplementary Movie 1
Supplementary information (MOV 352 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, Z., Guo, K., Li, Y. et al. A colour-tunable, weavable fibre-shaped polymer light-emitting electrochemical cell. Nature Photon 9, 233–238 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.37
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.37
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Body-conformable light-emitting materials and devices
Nature Photonics (2024)
-
Revolutionizing Wearable: Multicolored Photochromic Fiber Opens New Frontiers in Human–Machine Interaction
Advanced Fiber Materials (2024)
-
Design, fabrication and assembly considerations for electronic systems made of fibre devices
Nature Reviews Materials (2023)
-
Woven organic crystals
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Matrix Effect on Polydiarylfluorenes Electrospun Hybrid Microfibers: From Morphology Tuning to High Explosive Detection Efficiency
Chinese Journal of Polymer Science (2023)