Creative Techniques on Optical Fiber to Produce Luminescence Electronic Textiles

In this research, creative techniques have been applied on the surface of polymer optical fiberto observ new optical effects in the production of luminous textiles and their further application in designing luminous clothing. Accordingly, optical fibers of three different thicknesses (0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 mm) were subjected to secondary operations using techniques such as knotting, pulling, grinding the surface with sandpaper, melting, and creating scratches with a cutter, and were exposed to LED to evaluate their luminescence. The result showed that the light emitted from fibers with greater thickness shined more than the similar samples in fibers with less thickness. Additionally, a thicker fiber has been proven to be less flexible than a thinner fiber. Thinner plastic fibers revealed faster melting and weremore fragile and more sensitive to heat. In the knotting and melting methods, the obtained light was appeared in the form of a three-dimensional spotlight. In the melting method, the resulting light was appeared brighter than other samples due to the formation of a spherical shape in the fiber tip. On the other hand, the light emitted from the samples exposed to sanding and pulling scatter appeareduniformly due to the fiber transparency and linear processing. The conducted research declaredthe high potential of optical fibers for the production of luminous textiles with unique design capabilities and their high efficiency in the fashion and clothing industry.