Enhanced Side-Illumination of Etched Polymer Optical Fiber (POF)-Incorporated Woven Polyester (PET) Fabrics

Abstract

The textile industry has been weaving polymer optical fibers (POFs) into plane fabric for many years for lighting and decoration. To apply POF-incorporated fabrics in a larger field of application, it is necessary to improve the side illumination of POF-incorporated fabrics. It has been reported that the chemical etching method is one method to enhance the illumination of POFs, while there is little research related to the application of chemical etching to enhance the illumination of POF-incorporated fabrics. In this work, the end emitting POFs (EEPOFs) were used as weft yarns, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) yarns were used as warp yarns. The POF-incorporated woven PET fabrics were successfully fabricated with a 1/3 twill structure and then treated with a mixture of acetone and methanol (volume ratio: 1:1) for 1 min. The morphology and side illumination of etched POF-incorporated PET fabrics were investigated. As a result, the acetone/methanol mixture destroyed the cladding layer of EEPOFs, and the luminance of etched POF-incorporated PET fabrics was increased by more than 50 %. Besides, acetone/methanol etching resulted in a higher side illumination attenuation behavior.