An analysis on the luminance efficiency of the machine embroidery method applied to flexible plastic optical fiber for realization of the textile display

In this research, we investigated the luminance efficiency of the computerized embroidery methods applied to flexible plastic optical fiber (POF) for realization of the textile display. Due to the nature of the flexible POF being similar to that of textile yarn, it has been possible to realize a flexible textile display by application of some adjusted fabrication methods. However, besides the simple property of flexibility, two requirements are still demanded for the flexible POF-based textile display: high luminance and the method for realization of pixels in a display. Among the fabrication methods, machine embroidery has feasibility to realize relatively higher luminance of flexible POF-based textiles through a simple procedure. The aim of this study is to evaluate of the feasibility of the embroidery method for the flexible POF-based textile display in terms of luminance, and an approach for a suitable condition in the embroidery method to realize the textile display. To do this, four embroidery methods, in which bending angles from around 90° to around 180° were applied to the flexible POF, were developed in this study. The measurement method was conducted identically on two types of POFs (flexible POFs and non-flexible POFs). The measurement points were selected in consideration of the distance from the light source and the rotation angle of the embroidery, depending on each embroidery design. Based on the resulting luminance efficiency according to the four embroidery methods, suitable conditions for the embroidery method to realize a relatively higher level of luminance for the textile display were suggested.