Self-healable organic light-emitting devices based on electronic textiles

Wearable displays that can be applied to smart clothing systems are attracting attention as a core technology in terms of the communication between machines and humans. However, currently available displays still lack durability under random deformations of clothes. Here, we report a self-healable organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) for smart clothing system, which can recover from the various physical deformations of clothing. The reduced luminance of damaged OLEDs can be recovered again, and the structure variation caused by repetitive motions of the OLEDs can be restored to the original shape. In addition, the operating voltage of the self-healable OLEDs is 2.9 V, which is the lowest among those reported for light-emitting devices with self-healing materials. The electroluminescence intensity at 514 nm of a damaged OLEDs is only about 14.2% of its initial value due to the formations of leakage currents around internal and external cracks. However, the electroluminescence intensity at 514 nm of a damaged device recovers to 95.3% of its initial value due to the self-healing property of the polyvinyl alcohol:Agar nanocomposite and the shape-memory property of the cross-linked polyurethane. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our newly developed self-healable OLEDs represents a new core technology for future smart clothing systems because it can self-recover from damage.