Bio-Inspired High-Low Toughness Multilayer Mechanoluminescent Composite With Superior Mechanical Properties

Polydimethylsiloxane confers stretchability, enhanced brightness, mechanical responsivity and self-charging capability to mechanoluminescence materials, yet its intrinsic low toughness and crack resistance pose a major obstacle to the practical application of ML devices. Herein, high-toughness silicone-rubber layers were introduced to slice the ZnS:Cu@Al₂O₃/PDMS matrix into a multilayer architecture that mimics the hinged microstructure of clam. The modified composite exhibits a dramatic enhancement in stretchability, with fracture strain increasing from approximately 100% to 500%. This improvement is accompanied by more than a four-fold boost in ultimate ML intensity, along with sustained durability demonstrated over 30 000 cycles at the tensile limit. The reduced layer thickness and suppressed crack propagation by the high-toughness silicone-rubber interlayer raise toughness from 0.95 to 4.93 MJ/m³. This work provides an effective strategy for enhancing the performance of PDMS-based flexible ML composites, advancing their practicality and offering new insights for applications in stress visualization, intelligent information display, and mechanics sensing.