Photo-responsive nematic polymers can transduce light into mechanical work, but the rate is limited by the quasi-static deformation. To enhance the work output, a strategy of exploiting photo-triggered snap-through of glassy nematic shallow spherical shells with hemeotropic director alignment is examined here. The criterion for the nonlinear instability is derived analytically by using the modified iteration method. It is shown that, for thin shells of small height and large basal radius, snap-through can be caused by an incident light with moderate irradiation intensity. The phenomenon may inspire some new designs of contactless and ultra-fast actuation devices with high-rate output of mechanical work.

光响应向列聚合物可以将光转换为机械功，但其速率受到准静态变形的限制。为了提高工作输出，这里研究了一种利用光触发快速通过玻璃状向列浅球壳与向异性导向器对齐的策略。非线性不稳定性的判据是通过使用改进的迭代方法解析地推导出来的。结果表明，对于小高度和大基底半径的薄壳，具有中等照射强度的入射光可以引起快速穿透。这种现象可能会激发一些具有高速率机械功输出的非接触式和超快速驱动装置的新设计。