Textile-Based Stretchable NIR OLED for Wearable Pulse Oximetry Sensor and Neuronal Cell Proliferation in the Human Cerebral Cortex

Recently, wearable optoelectronic devices have emerged as the most important platform for real-time monitoring or treatment of human health based on their safe and non-invasive advantages. The closer these wearable optoelectronic devices are to the human body, the more their therapeutic effects can be maximized, and the more accurate the monitoring can be. The ultimate direction of these devices is to be applied as a platform in the form of textile-based clothing that people actually wear, and at the same time, they should have flexibility and stretchability to ensure comfortable use. However, the existing light source technology has shown limitations in implementing a high-reliability, high-performance, and stretchable textile-based optoelectronic platform.
In this talk, we developed a real textile-based stretchable NIR OLED through the structural and optical design of a transferable OLED with a kirigami pattern, and demonstrated the pulse oximetry sensor and neuronal cell proliferation effect based on it. This textile-based wearable platform maintained opto-electrical characteristics (>10,000 cd/m²) and WVTR characteristics (~10^-6 g/m²/day) even at a stretched state of up to 100% due to the application of DBR-based multifunctional encapsulation multi-barrier, and also demonstrated external UV blocking effect and washability. Based on the textile-based stretchable OLED, we verified that PPG healthcare monitoring sensing was possible even at a stretched state of up to 60%, and the neuronal cell proliferation effect (>55%) was also confirmed at the output of 5 mW/cm². In conclusion, we have demonstrated the potential of wearable display applications, health care monitoring, and photomedcine applications using truly human-wearable, stretchable textile-based NIR OLEDs.

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