Fig. 2: Scalable fabrication and luminance performance.
a Schematic of the scalable fabrication process combining liquid-solid phase separation in coaxial wet-spinning and ion-induced gelation in hydrogel coating. b SEM images and corresponding energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) mapping of fluorine (F) and chloride (Cl) elements of bilayer coaxial fibres coated by hydrogel with and without pre-coating of ion source solution. Scale bar, 1 mm. c Water content and ionic conductivity of PVA-B/SA-C/LiCl/Gly hydrogel measured for over 10 months. d Transmittance in the visible spectrum measured for PVA-B/SA-C/LiCl/Gly hydrogel (~370 μm thickness). Inset is an optical microscope image of a SHINE fibre surface, showing the good transparency of the hydrogel. Scale bar, 1 mm. e The fibre can be fabricated to a few meters and lit up (Vac = 400 V, fac = 50 Hz, TEL = 167 μm, and \(\vec{{\rm E}}\) = 2.4 V×μm−1). Scale bar, 10 cm. f The luminance performance of SHINE fibre at different \(\vec{{\rm E}}\) and fac. TEL = 141 μm. g Comparison of the luminance versus \(\vec{{\rm E}}\) of our SHINE fibre with previously reported EL fibres. h Ratio between luminance at a point in time (L) and pristine luminance (L0) of SHINE fibre for over 10 months. Samples for long-term characterizations were stored under ambient conditions with a temperature of (20.8 ± 0.5) °C and relative humidity of (74.3 ± 2.7) %. Error bars are standard deviations of results from three samples.
