writer：Wenwen Wang, Weijie Cheng, Feixia Liu, Kangyu Jia, Huihui Zhan, Chenguang Yang等
keywords：Hollow Fiber; Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Elastomer; Mechanochromic; Resilience; Sensitivity
source：期刊
specific source：Advanced Science
Issue time：2025年

Mechanochromic cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCE) are

unique anisotropic rubbers with the programmable optical properties in response

to external stimuli, bringing considerable interests in display, sensing and smart

textiles. However, creating mechanochromic CLCE fibers with high sensitivity,

excellent resilience and stable color-changing reversibility is still a

challenge. This work describes mechanochromic CLCE symmetric

hollow fibers with excellent radial helix alignment prepared by solvent

evaporation-induced assembly and template assistance. The cylindrical symmetry

renders the response identical in all directions perpendicular to fiber axis. The

hollow fibers show mechanochromic ability in full visible spectrum, a large

wavelength blueshift of 2.25 nm·%-1 under low strain. Excellent

mechanochromic reversibility of 100 cycles and resilience are both devoted by cross-linking

structure in the wall layer, which also contributes to reversible orientation-recovery

of liquid crystal units during stretching-recovery cycles. Numerical models and

experimental measurements demonstrate the hollow structure enabled fibers to

produce air pressure inside when being stretched, and the fiber wall layer is

subjected to greater stress compared to solid fibers, thus achieving high

mechanochromic sensitivity. In addition, hollow fiber can still change

color when subjected to the expansion stress inside the cavity, and

programmable information display in fabric prolongs its application in intelligent

textiles.