Spray-Coated Organic Light-Emitting Electrochemical Cells Realized on a Standard Woven Polyester Cotton Textile

Abstract

In this article, organic light-emitting electrochemical cells (OLECs) have been fabricated on a substrate consisting of a standard woven polyester cotton textile. The textile substrate is presmoothed by first screen printing an ultraviolet (UV) curable polyurethane layer, termed the interface layer. Solution-processed spray coating is then utilized to deposit all the functional layers on the textile to achieve fully spray-coated flexible OLECs. OLEC devices were initially fabricated on ITO-coated glass substrates for process optimization. Then, the OLECs were fabricated on flexible textile using the optimized spray coating process. Finally, both OLECs devices on the glass and textile substrates were encapsulated by stencil printing epoxy before testing in an ambient environment. The OLECs on ITO-coated glass exhibit a turn-on voltage of 3 V, a brightness level of 200 cd/m2 and a lifetime of at least 60 min. The OLECs on textile exhibit a turn-on voltage of 4 V, a brightness level of 80 cd/m2 level and a lifetime of at least 30 min.