Fibertronic Textile Displays: OLED-Based Designs and Implementations

Abstract

Electronic textiles (e-textiles) represent a versatile class of functional textiles encompassing diverse applications including healthcare monitoring, functional outdoor clothing, and information delivery. Within this domain, e-textile displays have emerged as a particularly compelling category, triggering intensive research into luminescent fiber technologies. Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) exhibit strong potential for e-textile display configurations owing to their inherently thin and flexible form factors as well as their compatibility with both vacuum and solution processing on one-dimensional fiber structures. In this Spotlight on Applications, we highlight recent advancements in OLED fiber technology from our previous studies, which addressed the device design and fabrication strategies for high-performance electroluminescence, environmentally robust operation, and matrix addressability in fiber networks. We also identify critical challenges specific to OLED fiber formats, such as interconnectable fiber pixel encapsulation and limited emitting areas in interwoven textile configurations, and discuss potential solution options. Experimental demonstrations, together with the underlying design rationale for device materials and architectures, provide a practical route toward fibertronic textile displays, advancing emerging e-textile platforms.