Photothermal modulated dielectric elastomer actuator for resilient soft robots.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36351948.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-34301-w and PMC identifier 9646827.
- 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
Soft robots need to be resilient to extend their operation under unpredictable environments. While utilizing elastomers that are tough and healable is promising to achieve this, mechanical enhancements often lead to higher stiffness that deteriorates actuation strains. This work introduces liquid metal nanoparticles into carboxyl polyurethane elastomer to sensitize a dielectric elastomer actuator (DEA) with responsiveness to electric fields and NIR light. The nanocomposite can be healed under NIR illumination to retain high toughness (55 MJ m<sup>-3</sup>) and can be recycled at lower temperatures and shorter durations due to nanoparticle-elastomer interactions that minimize energy barriers. During co-stimulation, photothermal effects modulate the elastomer moduli to lower driving electric fields of DEAs. Bilayer configurations display synergistic actuation under co-stimulation to improve energy densities, and enable a DEA crawler to achieve longer strides. This work paves the way for a generation of soft robots that achieves both resilience and high actuation performance.