Thermal morphing of inflatable liquid crystal elastomer domes with kirigami-enabled programmability.

Abstract

Kirigami provides a powerful route to program deformation in structures made of soft active materials. Here, we report thermally responsive inflatable domes based on liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) embedded with designed kirigami patterns. Leveraging the intrinsic coupling between liquid crystalline order and elastic deformation, these systems exhibit large, reversible shape morphing under thermal stimuli. Planar LCE membranes are patterned with straight line, triangular, quadrilateral, and hexagonal kirigami motifs <i>via</i> topology-guided design. Upon pneumatic inflation, the membranes transform into three-dimensional domes, while the introduced cuts disrupt the biaxial stress state and promote heterogeneous strain redistribution. The highly stretched regions near the cuts are expected to exhibit a higher degree of mesogen alignment, enabling enhanced control of thermally driven deformation. We systematically vary cut geometry and inflation pressure, revealing strong, nontrivial effects on regulating dome height, deformation mode, and mechanical stiffness. Rational kirigami designs simultaneously achieve large and programmable morphing. This work establishes kirigami-patterned LCE domes as a scalable platform for high-performance soft actuators, adaptive surfaces, and morphing structures.