Issue 11/2015 - Scientists invent fibrous polymer luminescent electrochemical cells

It is understood that the Peng Huisheng research group of the Department of Polymer Science and the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Molecular Engineering of Fudan University has developed a new type of fibrous polymer luminescent electrochemical cell, which brings "dawn" to the development of wearable fibrous light-emitting devices
.

In recent years, wearable electronic devices have been widely used in many fields
such as microelectronics, biomedicine, transportation and aerospace.
With the continuous development of wearable fibrous energy devices, flexibility, lightweight, and convenience can no longer meet all people's imagination
of wearable electronic devices.
To make wearable electronic devices not only "beautiful to use", but also "look more beautiful", researchers have continued to tackle the research and development of wearable fibrous light-emitting devices
.

After more than three years of painstaking research, the research group developed the fibrous polymer luminescence electrochemical cell
for the first time in the world by low-cost solution method.
The research group first uniformly adsorbed zinc oxide nanoparticles and polymer light-emitting layer on the steel wire, and then evenly wound a highly conductive oriented carbon nanotube film on the outer surface of the polymer light-emitting layer as a transparent electrode, and finally obtained a fibrous polymer luminescent electrochemical cell
.

Traditional light-emitting devices mainly include organic small molecule light-emitting diodes and polymer light-emitting diodes
.
Compared to traditional LEDs, fibrous polymer luminescent electrochemical cells offer unique advantages such as lower operating voltage, higher electron/photon conversion efficiency and higher power efficiency
.
More importantly, compared with organic light-emitting diodes, polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells have lower requirements for the roughness of the surface of the electrode material, which will facilitate large-scale production
.

It is understood that the current fibrous polymer luminescent electrochemical cell can achieve 360-degree luminescence
.
If different colors of light-emitting polymers are integrated into one fiber, different colors of light
can also be emitted on one fiber at the same time.
The study also found that these light-emitting fibers also have good flexibility, can be woven into flexible fabrics and various patterns, combine different colors of fibers, and can also achieve effective control
of composite light color by controlling the brightness ratio of light-emitting fibers.

For years, there has been a desire to develop wearable light-emitting fibers, and this research has achieved a breakthrough
.
It is reported that the research group will further improve the performance of the device and lay the foundation
for the large-scale industrial production of light-emitting wearable electronic devices.

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