POS5-1115
Conductive Hydrogel Optical Fibers with Controlled Swelling Fabricated via Microfluidics
Topic
S5. Polymers for Electronics and Photonics
When and Where
Sep 29, 2026
08:30 - 09:30
Room 301 (Grand Ballroom)
Session Chairs
Hae Jung SON
Boseok KANG
Presenter(s)
Arti Singh (Pusan National University)
Co-Author(s)
Abstract
Microfluidics was used to fabricate conductive hydrogel optical fibers (CHOFs) for wearable bioelectronics, which combined optical transmission, ionic conductivity, and mechanical flexibility. Ionic activation-induced swelling may disrupt the tuned refractive index contrast and weaken light guidance, so we incorporated sodium acrylate into the cladding to control the differential swelling between the core and the cladding, thereby maintaining optical confinement after the NaCl immersion. The swelling-controlled design achieved simultaneous optical and electrical functions, leading to low optical loss (0.088 dB/cm), high ionic conductivity (26.6 mS/cm) and high stretchability (321%) of the fibers. The CHOFs further served as dual-mode sensors that can emit light and detect strain (gauge factor: 1.21) for human motion monitoring.
