Abstract
Bio-inspiration relentlessly sparks the novel ideas to develop innovative soft robotic structures from smart materials. The conceptual soft robotic designs inspired by biomimetic routes have resulted in pioneering research contributions based on the understanding of the material selection and actuation properties. In an attempt to overcome the hazardous injuries, soft robotic systems are used subsequently to ensure safe human–robot interaction. In contrast to dielectric elastomer actuators, prolific efforts were made by understanding the photo-actuating properties of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) containing azo-derivatives to construct mechanical structures and tiny portable robots for specific technological applications. The structure and material properties of these stimuli-responsive polymers can skillfully be controlled by light. In this short technical note, we highlight the potential high-tech importance and the photo-actuation behavior of some remarkable LCEs with azobenzene chromophores.
Highlights
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are a new unique class of material derived from the combination of elasticity properties and orientational order of mesogenic building blocks
The photoresponsive moiety used by the authors is meta-methylazobenzene (M-azo), it was covalently crosslinked with dodecyl glyceryl itaconate (DGI) to construct crosslinked liquid crystalline polymers (CLCPs) films
2018. and photomechanical response of the crosslinked liquid crystalline polymer azo) compound (CLCP) film developed by Yue et al, Adapted with permission from [47], Springer Nature, 2018
Summary
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are a new unique class of material derived from the combination of elasticity properties (like in an elastomer) and orientational order of mesogenic building blocks (liquid crystalline molecular array). Since the monodomain alignment of mesogenic groups was thermodynamically unstable, due to its spontaneous conversion into polydomain structures, researchers were only synthesizing polydomain side-chain LCEs until the pioneering research works of Küpfer and Finkelmann [4,5]. When the crosslinking was done in the nematic phase, the state of order was fixed within the crosslinking zones, leading to ‘frozen-in’ order This can be achieved by exposing the sample to the applied mechanical stress perpendicular to the original direction of the monodomain [11,12,13].
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