Journal of Textile Research ›› 2025, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (10): 255-264.doi: 10.13475/j.fzxb.20241104502

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Research progress in flexible electroluminescent devices based on zinc sulfide

WEI Xinjie1, ZHOU Sijie1,2, XIA Liangjun1()   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of New Textile Materials and Advanced Processing, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, Hubei 430200, China
    2. College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
  • Received:2024-11-19 Revised:2025-02-20 Online:2025-10-15 Published:2025-10-15
  • Contact: XIA Liangjun E-mail:liangjun_xia@wtu.edu.cn

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Abstract:

Significance In recent years, with the increasing demand for convenience in everyday life, textiles are now expected to have additional functions, such as health monitoring, electronic communication, and optical displays, apart from just providing warmth. Among these ubiquitous features of e-textiles, the optical display of textiles is vital for extensive applications. Alternative current electroluminescence (ACEL) refers to a solid luminescence phenomenon, in which composites convert electric energy into optical energy. Electroluminescent devices have been the research hotspots of lighting sources and displays that are highly desired for multi-field such as displays, electronic skin, and soft robots. Owing to the designable ease for easily stretching, compressing, bending, twisting, folding, and knotting, the flexible electroluminescent devices have attracted much attention. However, the progress has been limited by the effective integration of stretching performance, input voltage, brightness, and transmittance under development in electronic devices.

Progress In the rapid development of wearable light-emitting devices, electroluminescent devices hold a large share of the global lighting and display market in the soft electronics field, including wearable electronics, implantable devices, electronic skin, soft robots, and energy generation and storage systems. Flexible ACEL devices based on nanoscale zinc sulfide (ZnS) materials due to high efficiency conversion rate, long light-emitting life, abundant light-emitting colors and energy-saving and environmentally friendly advantage have been developed. The current strategies for optimizing ACEL devices include reducing the voltage, increasing the brightness and improving the stretchability. The stretched ACEL display is limited by the high drive voltage required to achieve high brightness. The high voltage of ACEL devices seriously threatens the safety of the human body, making it difficult to put into practical application. A series of designed ACEL devices with emitting brightness at low voltage has been extensively investigated, which are suitable for practical applications. For decades, attention has been focused on ACEL devices due to their huge market value in light sources and display fields. In particular, great progress has been made in developing cost-effective manufacturing methods for environmentally friendly lighting devices. For flexible ACEL devices, various tensile strains are directed to different regions, while maintaining structural integrity and high performance under severe stress.

Conclusion and Prospect The global demand for optoelectronic devices maintains a continuing sustainable growth. Due to the excellent luminescence in the lighting materials, electroluminescence has continuous improvement in soft electronics and wearable electronic devices with light, flexibility, and practicability. But the following questions remain. Corresponding to the advantages of high brightness, high performance relying on high voltage, limiting the practical application, the attention of ACEL devices in the display should be attracted in reducing the voltage to satisfy availability and stability of satisfactory emit brightness. With the rapid development and great progress of science and technology, a large number of electronic devices based on the ZnS have emerged, lacking the suitable materials to assemble devices of flexible and excellent performance. Therefore, it is necessary to study the electroluminescence characteristics of ZnS attributing to develop the ACEL devices and to expand the miniaturization and visualization of devices. Electroluminescent devices provide prominent properties compared to other large-area luminescence technologies. Although many investigations have been focused on color tunability and white light emission, the limitations on multi-color display and brightness uniformity restrict the extension of the application.

Key words: zinc sulfide, electroluminescent material, flexible electroluminescent device, electroluminescent principle, performance optimization

CLC Number: 

  • TN 383.1

Fig.1

Structure and working principle of alternating current electroluminescence devices. (a) Basic structure of ACEL device; (b) Working principle of ZnS electroluminescent device"

Tab.1

Comparison of input voltage with ACEL device"

介电材料 基体
材料		 器件结构和材料 通电
电压		 文献
TPU TPU AgNWs电极-TPU/
ZnS发光层		 100 V [23]
BaTiO3 ITO ITO-PET电极-
ZnS/BaTiO3		 100 V,
1 kHz		 [27]
BaTiO3 PDMS AgNWs电极-BaTiO3/
ZnS/PDMS发光层		 80 V,
1 kHz		 [24-25]
陶瓷纳米颗
粒表面涂
PVP		 PVDF-HFP AgNWs电极-PVDF/
HFP/ZnS/陶瓷纳米
颗粒/PVP发光层		 65 V,
17 kHz		 [22]
添加了非离子型氟化表面活性剂的PVDF PVDF 离子液体-
PVDF-ZnS		 23 V,
1 kHz		 [5]
BN PAA-PU PAA-NaCl电极-
PU/ZnS/BN发光层		 3 V/μm,
500 Hz		 [29]

Tab.2

Comparison of brightness and transmittance of different ACEL devices"

电极类型 器件结构和材料 透光率 通电电压 最大亮度 文献
水凝胶 石墨-VHB胶带-聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯离子导体-ZnS/Ecoflex发光层 100% 4.5 V/μm,2 kHz 95 cd/m2 [47]
银纳米线 AgNWs/无色聚酰亚胺电极-ZnS交流电致发光颗粒 80% 300 V,400 Hz 35 cd/m2 [31]
MXene MXeneSWCNTs电极-ZnS-PDMS发光层 80% 250 V [46]
镀银锦纶线 镀银锦纶线-PU/ZnS发光层 4 V/μm,6 kHz 149.08 cd/m2
80 cd/m2		 [36]
单壁碳纳米管 SWCNTs电极-ZnS:Cu-PDMS发光层 76% 100 V 313 nW [42]
石墨烯、银纳米线、
PEDOT:PSS		 双层-Gr/AgNWs-PEDOT/PSS/Bi-Gr电极-Cu/液金-ZnS/PDMS发光层 75% 3.5 V/μm,10 kHz 80 cd/m2 [44]

Tab.3

Comparison of structure and mechanical properties of stretchable ACEL devices"

设备类型 制备方法 器件结构和材料 最大拉伸性/% 通电电压 文献
平纹织物 涂敷 聚丙烯酰胺/氯化锂水凝胶电极-ZnS/硅酮弹性体发光层-聚吡咯-氨纶织物 100 3.2 V/μm [50]
针织物 涂敷 ZnS/Ecoflex发光层-液金电极-针织物 200 500 V, 2 kHz [51]
纤维 3D打印 聚乙烯醇/聚环氧乙烷的聚合物水凝胶电极-ZnS/硅酮弹性体发光层-聚四氟乙烯管 300 7.7 V/μm [52]
薄膜 涂敷 铝箔-聚丙烯酰胺水凝胶电极-VHB-ZnS荧光层 1 500 3.6 kV,1 kHz [53]
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