Abstract
As a typical 2D carbon material, graphene, that possesses outstanding physical/chemical properties, has revealed great potential for developing soft actuators. Especially, the unique properties of graphene, including the excellent light absorption property, softness, and thermal conductivity, play very important roles in the development of light-responsive graphene actuators. At present, various light-driven actuators have been successfully developed based on graphene and its derivatives. In this mini review, we reviewed the recent advances in this field. The unique properties of graphene or graphene-related materials that are of benefit to the development of light-driven actuators have been summarized. Typical smart actuators based on different photothermal/photochemical effects, including photothermal expansion, photothermal desorption, photoisomerization, and photo-triggered shape memory effect, have been introduced. Besides, current challenges, and future perspective have been discussed. The rapid progress of light-responsive actuators based on graphene has greatly stimulated the development of graphene-based soft robotics.
Highlights
Graphene is a single-atom-thick 2D material with carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb crystal lattice
Deng et al made an actuator based on a sandwiched structure of poly(vinylidenefluoride)/laser induced graphene/polyimide (PVDF/LIG/PI) (Deng et al, 2018)
Chen et al produced a graphene actuator with integrated-sensing function, whose shape changes will feedback real-timely (Chen et al, 2019)
Summary
Graphene is a single-atom-thick 2D material with carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb crystal lattice. As an essential component of the intelligent system, actuators can be categorized according to diverse stimuli (Ariga et al, 2016), such as light (Han et al, 2016; Han B. et al, 2018), moisture (Han et al, 2015; Cheng et al, 2016), electric (Zhu et al, 2019), solvent (Zhang et al, 2019), pneumatic (Wang et al, 2018), and so on Among these methods, light-driven strategy is more appealing for the remote and untethered control. Compared with other photothermal materials, such as metal nanoparticles (NPs) and dyes, graphene material is much more cost-effective and stable Taking advantages of these exceptional properties, graphene, and its derivatives are promising for developing lightdriven actuators. Light-responsive actuators can effectively convert light into mechanical work It has been extensively studied and applied in autonomous systems, robotics and biomedical science. We briefly summarized the typical energy conversion strategies of graphenebased light-driven actuators (Figure 1)
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