Biologically inspired, sophisticated motions from helically assembled, conducting fibers.

Chen, Peining; Xu, Yifan; He, Sisi; Sun, Xuemei; Guo, Wenhan; Zhang, Zhitao; Qiu, Longbin; Li, Jianfeng et al. · Adv Mater · 2015

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

A hierarchically helical organization of carbon nanotubes into macroscopic fibers enables sophistication while controlling three-dimensional electromechanical actuations, e.g., an artificial swing and tail. The actuation generates a stress of more than 260 times that of a typical natural skeletal muscle and an accelerated velocity of more than 10 times that of a cheetah at low electric currents with high reversibility, good stability, and availability to various media.

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