Workshop: http://workshop.dirmlab.org/

Presentation: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1WF41177mN/?vd_source=aa7c1f7833499fba91e4b7b250115241

 Liquid Crystal Elastomer Twist Fibers toward Rotating

Microengines

 Y. Wang, J. Sun, W. Liao and Z. Yang*

 Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

[zyang@tsinghua.edu.cn]

Liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) is a kind of crosslinked liquid crystal polymer network, which has the flexibility of polymer and the anisotropy of liquid crystal. It can produce large reversible deformation under external stimuli and has been widely applied in artificial muscles, soft robots etc.[1] Comparing to LCE film, LCE fiber is a good one-dimensional building block, which can construct three-dimensional LCE structure by bottom-up strategy, and conduct specific deformation and function. The LCE fiber structure has high specific surface area, which can efficiently absorb the energy from stimuli and thus has a fast responsive performance. Furthermore, twisting can be introduced into LCE fiber to realize rotation and enrich the deformation function of LCE fiber. This presentation describes LCE fiber preparation process and the spatial arrangement of fibers to realize the three-dimensional complex deformation mimicking heart pumping.[2] Introduction of liquid metal to LCE fiber to perform ultrafast and substantial deformation, [3] furthermore integration of sensing and actuating to construct Delta robot.[4] Finally, it focuses on LCE twisted fiber used in rotating microengines.[5] The investigation on the preparation and functionalization of LCE fiber provides a new strategy to expand the application of LCE in the fields of energy harvesters, micromachines and soft robots.

References

[1] K. M. Herbert et al., Nat. Rev. Mater. 7, 23 (2022)

[2] Y. Wang et al., Adv. Mater. Technol. 7, 2100934 (2022)

[3] J. Sun et al., Small 17, 2103700 (2021).

[4] W. Liao, Z. Yang, Adv. Mater. Technol. 7, 2101260 (2022).

[5] Y. Wang et al., Adv. Mater. 34, 2107840 (2022)