Functional Fibers for Next-Generation Flexible Technologies

A special issue of Fibers (ISSN 2079-6439).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 13808

Special Issue Editor


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Department of Engineering Science, University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo 182-8585, Japan
Interests: new materials for organic electronic applications; optoelectronic characterization of organic semiconductors; structure–morphology–property relationships in organic semiconductor thin films; surface and interface interactions in organic solar cell architectures; organic solar cell device architecture optimization; green and sustainable materials or processes for organic solar cell fabrication; optical properties of semitransparent organic solar cells
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Flexible devices are key elements to develop next-generation technologies, such as wearable electronics or lightweight on-board optical communication. One-dimensional materials can be fabricated through low-cost technologies such as electrospinning to produce single fibers, woven or non-woven fabrics and mats. Due to the confinement into these one-dimensional materials, fibers may display peculiar properties, such as polarized light emission, bright structural coloration, enhanced charge transport or simply increase in surface/interface to manipulate light or promote charge transfer. Nonetheless, even when single fibers with interesting properties can be produced, integrating them into a functional device or textile represents an additional technological challenge. Overcoming this challenge could provide us with highly innovative next-generation flexible technologies such as lightweight batteries, photovoltaic textile or smart wearables.

This Special Issue of Fibers will cover research on functional materials and devices based on active micro- and nanofibers from both fundamental and applicative points-of-view. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): Enhanced optoelectronic properties in one-dimensional materials, fibers for energy conversion and storage applications, novel flexible optoelectronic technologies, functional fiber-based textiles, light-matter interactions in micro- and nanofibers.

This issue will include original research papers (full papers, communications) and reviews.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Varun Vohra
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Electrospinning
  • Fiber drawing
  • Polymer optical fiber
  • Optoelectronic fiber
  • Energy conversion and storage
  • Flexible electronics
  • Smart textile
  • Bio-inspired materials
  • Optical coatings
  • One-dimensional materials

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 4072 KiB  
Article
Electrospun Nanofiber Mats with Embedded Non-Sintered TiO2 for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs)
by Al Mamun, Marah Trabelsi, Michaela Klöcker, Lilia Sabantina, Christina Großerhode, Tomasz Blachowicz, Georg Grötsch, Carsten Cornelißen, Almuth Streitenberger and Andrea Ehrmann
Fibers 2019, 7(7), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/fib7070060 - 4 Jul 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 7201
Abstract
TiO2 is a semiconductor that is commonly used in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). However, the necessity of sintering the TiO2 layer is usually problematic due to the desired temperatures of typically 500 °C in cells that are prepared on polymeric or [...] Read more.
TiO2 is a semiconductor that is commonly used in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). However, the necessity of sintering the TiO2 layer is usually problematic due to the desired temperatures of typically 500 °C in cells that are prepared on polymeric or textile electrodes. This is why textile-based DSSCs often use metal fibers or metallic woven fabrics as front electrodes on which the TiO2 is coated. Alternatively, several research groups investigate the possibilities to reduce the necessary sintering temperatures by chemical or other pre-treatments of the TiO2. Here, we report on a simple method to avoid the sintering step by using a nanofiber mat as a matrix embedding TiO2 nanoparticles. The TiO2 layer can be dyed with natural dyes, resulting in a similar bathochromic shift of the UV/Vis spectrum, as it is known from sintered TiO2 on glass substrates, which indicates an equivalent chemical bonding. Our results indicate a new possibility for producing textile-based DSSCs with TiO2, even on textile fabrics that are not high-temperature resistant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Fibers for Next-Generation Flexible Technologies)
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10 pages, 1778 KiB  
Article
Fabrication of a Fluorophore-Doped Cylindrical Waveguide Structure Using Elastomers for Visual Detection of Stress
by Chie Hirose, Nobuko Fukuda, Takafumi Sassa, Koji Ishibashi, Tsuyoshi Ochiai and Rei Furukawa
Fibers 2019, 7(5), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/fib7050037 - 26 Apr 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5768
Abstract
A fiber-optic strain sensor that can show strain via color change and which can be viewed using human eyes has demand in the civil engineering field for alerting purposes. A previous sensor was fabricated using PMMA (Poly(methyl methacrylate)), which had the exceeding hardness [...] Read more.
A fiber-optic strain sensor that can show strain via color change and which can be viewed using human eyes has demand in the civil engineering field for alerting purposes. A previous sensor was fabricated using PMMA (Poly(methyl methacrylate)), which had the exceeding hardness to exhibit satisfactory sensor performance. In this research, an elastomer-based fiber-optic structure was fabricated to enhance the elastic response of such sensors and to enlarge the waveguide cross section. Various organic fluorophores were added to the core and cladding regions of the elastic waveguide to induce energy flow from the core to the cladding when stress is applied to the waveguide. Elastomer pairs suitable for the core and cladding were selected from among several candidate materials having high transparency. A method of dispersing fluorophores to each host elastomer and constructing an excellent core–cladding interface using the selected materials was proposed. To investigate the time-dependent changes in the fluorescence of the doped elastomer waveguide, the absorption and emission spectra were monitored after the host elastomers were cured. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Functional Fibers for Next-Generation Flexible Technologies)
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