Bioinspired Hierarchical Cellulose Fibers With Cholesteric Ordered Structure for Advanced Textiles

Cholesteric architectures with helicoidal periodicity offer a highly promising biomimetic design paradigm for the development of advanced artificial materials. Furthermore, the integration of these axially symmetric architectures and continuous topological configurations into continuous fibrous systems enables the realization of expanded structural and functional design possibilities. However, the meta-periodicity of lyotropic liquid crystal is typically difficult to preserve during dynamic spinning processes due to its inherent energetic instability. Herein, a simple approach is presented to balance the viscoelasticity of the cholesteric precursor and enable the continuous cholesteric ordered fibrous structures (CLO fibers). The large molecular size and strong excluded volume dynamically stabilize the meta-periodicity. The CLO fibers exhibit exceptional mechanical performance, with ultimate tensile stress reaching up to 25.37 MPa, and Young's modulus reaching up to 152.36 MPa, together with remarkable weavability and unprecedented structural tunability. This study provides critical insights and essential references for the fabrication of length-scale materials platforms with tailored topologies, while broadening the potential applications of photonic materials in intelligent wearables, information storage, and biomedical fields.