Glowing felt textile [Invited]

We demonstrate a new technology–a combination of side glowing (or side emitting) plastic optical fibers with seamless felting technology–that addresses the challenges of smart textiles related to cutting and stitching together with the ability to be washed. The technology was explored for the development of a collection of dresses called “Deep Sea Life” that exhibit versatile designs and styles and so can advance modern fashion design. © 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

For data transmission applications, POF is guiding light along the fiber based on the total internal reflection in the fiber core [6].However, POF in smart textiles has to be side emitting (glowing) to provide illumination functionality [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].Side glowing can be achieved by launching light into the fiber at angles larger than critical or by fiber modification.Modification minimizes total internal reflection, either by raising the refractive index of cladding or by lowering the refractive index of the core or by enabling scattering to change the critical angle of incident light.The scattering can be enhanced by various techniques including multiple micro-bending of the fiber; mixing of scattering or fluorescent additives into the core or cladding material; creating asymmetries in the core/cladding geometry; chemical processing or laser ablation of the POF surface to create notches [6,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20].
The flexible thread-like characteristics of POF may give it the appearance of being a material easy to weave, knit or stitch into fabrics, but in practice, the fibers have proved far more difficult to handle than regular threads.The task is complicated further by the need for fibers to be connected to a light source and an electrical power supply, and to ensure that the ensemble can be washed [8].In textile, choosing the shape of optical fibers is very important.The fiber diameter has to be optimized: a diameter that is too large can cause inflexibility, while a diameter that is too small induces low shear resistance and loss of light intensity.Choice of textile technology is essential too.For example, optical power losses for fibers are less in fabrics which are made by weaving than by embroidery (soutage and shiffli weaving) [8,9,[17][18][19][20].Impressive aesthetic results have also been demonstrated by using an RGBmethod to create an image on the fabric by using traditional weaving textile technology [8,9,[17][18][19][20].The fiber can also be integrated with woven structures through handloom, narrow fabric weaving and Jacquard technology to produce plastic optical fiber (POF) woven fabrics as a flexible alternative to lighting elements [8,9,[17][18][19][20] and special purpose clothing [17][18][19][20].Interesting styles can be obtained by combining conventional fabrics with cut pieces of POF-fabric, but some problems can arise with the power source and light feed for every piece.The tex source across thus incurring commercial p restrictions on We prese combination w of "smart tex sewing along technology ad collection of i

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