Fig. 1

Fabrication of electrostrictive fibres. a Schematic of the preform assembly for a multimaterial electrostrictive fibre. A P(VDF-TrFE-CFE) layer (red) is assembled with CPE polymer electrodes (black), Bi–Sn electrodes (brown) and a PC cladding (beige), and consolidated. The surrounding shell incorporates a multilayer As₂₅S₇₅/PC structure (top). b Schematic of the preform-to-fibre draw process. c Array of flexible electrostrictive fibres shows colored reflections via the Bragg effect. d SEM micrographs of the overall structure and close-up of a multimaterial electrostrictive fibre and Bragg layers. Scale bars for top, bottom left, and bottom right are 100, 20, and 2 μm, respectively. e We demonstrate the capability to integrate our fibre MEMS into the textile using conventional weaving machines