Axially Encoded Mechano‐Metafiber Electronics by Local Strain Engineering

Multimaterial integration, such as soft elastic and stiff components, exhibits rich deformation and functional behaviors to meet complex needs. Integrating multimaterials in the level of individual fiber is poised to maximize the functional design capacity of smart wearable electronic textiles, but remains unfulfilled. Here, this work continuously integrates stiff and soft elastic components into single fiber to fabricate encoded mechano-metafiber by programmable microfluidic sequence spinning (MSS). The sequences with programmable modulus feature the controllable localization of strain along metafiber length. The mechano-metafibers feature two essential nonlinear deformation modes, which are local strain amplification and retardation. This work extends the sequence-encoded metafiber into fiber networks to exhibit greatly enhanced strain amplification and retardation capability in cascades. Local strain engineering enables the design of highly sensitive strain sensors, stretchable fiber devices to protect brittle components and the fabrication of high-voltage supercapacitors as well as axial electroluminescent arrays. The approach allows the scalably design of multimaterial metafibers with programmable localized mechanical properties for woven metamaterials, smart textiles, and wearable electronics.