Polymeric Optical Fiber Fabrics for Illumination and Sensorial Applications in Textiles

An ever increasing number of publications, reviews, and books are written about polymer optical fibers (POFs). Articles of POFs for a wide range of applications especially for networks in buildings, automobiles, railways, aviation, or in industrial plants are numerous, while publications where POFs are used in textiles are rather rare. In this review, we want to present the different techniques to produce textile-based POFs and the possibilities and applications offered by these textiles. They have been produced for a wide range of implementations in illumination and sensing. Special attention will be given to the features of differences in textile structures resulting in flexible and lightweight structures. Recent applications in the field of optical textiles given in this report demonstrate practicability and usefulness for flexible 2D illumination areas. This article provides an overview of the current polymeric optical fiber fabrics and textile constructions for optical textiles and the main applications where these innovative textiles are of great benefit.