Layered liquid crystal elastomer actuators.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29955053.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-04911-4 and PMC identifier 6023890.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are soft, anisotropic materials that exhibit large shape transformations when subjected to various stimuli. Here we demonstrate a facile approach to enhance the out-of-plane work capacity of these materials by an order of magnitude, to nearly 20 J/kg. The enhancement in force output is enabled by the development of a room temperature polymerizable composition used both to prepare individual films, organized via directed self-assembly to retain arrays of topological defect profiles, as well as act as an adhesive to combine the LCE layers. The material actuator is shown to displace a load >2500× heavier than its own weight nearly 0.5 mm.