Bio‐Inspired High‐Low Toughness Multilayer Mechanoluminescent Composite With Superior Mechanical Properties

ABSTRACT Polydimethylsiloxane confers stretchability, enhanced brightness, mechanical responsivity and self‐charging capability to mechanoluminescence materials, yet its intrinsic low toughness and crack resistance pose a major obstacle to the practical application of ML devices. Herein, high‐toughness silicone‐rubber layers were introduced to slice the ZnS:Cu@Al 2 O 3 /PDMS matrix into a multilayer architecture that mimics the hinged microstructure of clam. The modified composite exhibits a dramatic enhancement in stretchability, with fracture strain increasing from approximately 100% to 500%. This improvement is accompanied by more than a four‐fold boost in ultimate ML intensity, along with sustained durability demonstrated over 30 000 cycles at the tensile limit. The reduced layer thickness and suppressed crack propagation by the high‐toughness silicone‐rubber interlayer raise toughness from 0.95 to 4.93 MJ/m 3 . This work provides an effective strategy for enhancing the performance of PDMS‐based flexible ML composites, advancing their practicality and offering new insights for applications in stress visualization, intelligent information display, and mechanics sensing.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Materials
Published
2026-07-23
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.74267
Primary Topic
Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Bio‐Inspired High‐Low Toughness Multilayer Mechanoluminescent Composite With Superior Mechanical Properties

Rui Cao, Jiachi Zhang, Zhaofeng Wang, Ziyi Guo et al.
Advanced Materials
Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
article

Bio‐Inspired High‐Low Toughness Multilayer Mechanoluminescent Composite With Superior Mechanical Properties

Rui Cao, Jiachi Zhang, Zhaofeng Wang, Ziyi Guo, Jinyu Zhou, H B Wu, Xiao He, Xianfeng Jin, Bo Zhou
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Polydimethylsiloxane confers stretchability, enhanced brightness, mechanical responsivity and self‐charging capability to mechanoluminescence materials, yet its intrinsic low toughness and crack resistance pose a major obstacle to the practical application of ML devices. Herein, high‐toughness silicone‐rubber layers were introduced to slice the ZnS:Cu@Al 2 O 3 /PDMS matrix into a multilayer architecture that mimics the hinged microstructure of clam. The modified composite exhibits a dramatic enhancement in stretchability, with fracture strain increasing from approximately 100% to 500%. This improvement is accompanied by more than a four‐fold boost in ultimate ML intensity, along with sustained durability demonstrated over 30 000 cycles at the tensile limit. The reduced layer thickness and suppressed crack propagation by the high‐toughness silicone‐rubber interlayer raise toughness from 0.95 to 4.93 MJ/m 3 . This work provides an effective strategy for enhancing the performance of PDMS‐based flexible ML composites, advancing their practicality and offering new insights for applications in stress visualization, intelligent information display, and mechanics sensing.

Advanced Materials
Yantai University (CN), Lanzhou University of Technology (CN), Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Openalex Percentile: Top 16%
Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials
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Bio‐Inspired High‐Low Toughness Multilayer Mechanoluminescent Composite With Superior Mechanical Properties — Rui Cao, Jiachi Zhang, et al. · Advanced Materials (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS