Stretchable Light

Development of thin and stretchable electroluminescent films

If we want to be able to integrate EL in our clothing and on our body the EL device must be flexible and to some extend also stretchable. In this study we developed stretchable and transparent electrodes and used these to construct a thin EL device on a silicone rubber substrate. It can be wrapped around your finger, sticks on a glass window and can be stretched up to 100%. In addition also a stretchable 8x8 EL matrix is developed in which the pixels can be lit up separable. Imagine what you can do with that!


Videos

It was not always easy to develop samples with perfect adhesion between the layers
In the final formulation we have a 1 mm thick stretchable EL device
The active layer is thin and stretchable and lights up under UV without the need of electrodes

Researchers