There is intense interest in making mechanically stable elastomers with properties resembling those of human muscles for use in soft robotics. Recently, a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer prepared without the use of cross-linking moieties from heterobifunctional PDMS macromonomers of intermediate molecular weight has been shown to exhibit surprising inherent softness and excellent stability upon both large deformation and swelling, in clear contradiction of classical rubber elasticity theories. In this work, this unexpected elasticity is shown to originate from concatenated rings.

中文翻译：

---

没有共价交联的弹性体：级联环提高了弹性

制备具有类似于人类肌肉的性能的机械稳定的弹性体引起了人们的极大兴趣，用于软机器人。近来，已表明不使用由中等分子量的异双官能PDMS大分子单体交联部分制得的聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）弹性体，在大变形和溶胀时均表现出令人惊讶的固有柔软性和出色的稳定性，这与经典的橡胶弹性明显矛盾理论。在这项工作中，这种意外的弹性被证明是由级联环引起的。