Mechanical and optical bending of nematic elastomer cantilevers

Abstract

We describe how bend imposed on a nematic elastomer cantilever can be accommodated with little or no internal stress by the director rotating. Thus, for a range of imposed curvatures that we calculate, there is no countertorque. Equally nonclassically, in such beams there is associated transverse curvature (clasticity). When instead bend is induced by illumination which causes spatially dependent contractions, director rotation can also act to vitiate stresses, but then (anti-)clasticity and its suppression has to be resolved, sometimes at the cost of stress creation.