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Highly Stretchable, Strain Sensing Hydrogel Optical Fibers.
Jingjing Guo1,2, Xinyue Liu3, Nan Jiang4,5
1Harvard Medical School and Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, 65 Landsdowne Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139, USA.
Advanced Materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)
|October 8, 2016
Summary
Highly stretchable hydrogel fibers can guide light and detect strain. Doping with fluorescent dyes allows for precise measurement and localization of strain through spectral changes when stretched.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Optoelectronics
- Biomedical Engineering
Background:
- Hydrogel fibers offer unique optical and mechanical properties.
- Developing stretchable materials for sensing applications is a key challenge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To create a highly stretchable optical fiber using hydrogels.
- To demonstrate the fiber's capability for strain sensing and localization.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of a core-clad fiber from elastic, tough hydrogels.
- Doping the hydrogel fiber with fluorescent dyes via diffusion.
- Measuring changes in the transmission spectrum under tensile strain.
Main Results:
- The hydrogel fiber exhibited high stretchability while maintaining light guiding properties.
- Strain-induced alterations in the transmission spectrum were observed.
- The method enabled both measurement and localization of strain along the fiber.
Conclusions:
- Elastic hydrogel fibers are promising for stretchable optoelectronic devices.
- The developed fiber serves as an effective sensor for measuring and locating strain.
- This technology has potential applications in wearable sensors and structural health monitoring.
