Fabrication and characterization of multi stimuli-responsive fibers via wet-spinning process

Luminescent fibers have attracted much attention due to their application in smart textiles for anti-counterfeiting, camouflage, fashion designs and so on. However, fibers with single function of luminescent is fail to meet the growing demand of smart textiles. Herein, we develop a multifunctional fiber with quick-responsive reversible photochromic and light-emitting with long afterglow. Doping with rare earth material SrAl₂O₄:Eu²⁺, Dy³⁺ phosphors and photochromic pigments into polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers enable by facile wet-spinning process, the properties of photochromic luminescent fibers were experimentally investigated in details. The results make clear that resulting fibers exhibit quick-responsive reversible photochromic properties and can be excited by a wide range of ray from 300 to 450 nm, displaying a wide band with a maximum peak at 525 nm. The photochromic pigments and SrAl₂O₄:Eu²⁺, Dy³⁺ phosphors distributed in fibers evenly and the fibers are stable below 258.76 °C. Persistent luminescent properties of fibers are excellent and the afterglow can last for more than 1 h. The ultimate strength of fibers are more than 1.39 MPa. Comparing with a lot of investigated luminescent fibers, our work to photochromic luminescent fibers show huge potential in anti-counterfeiting, aesthetics fashion designs and so on for smart textiles.