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Micro-actuators: when artificial muscles made of nematic liquid crystal elastomers meet soft lithography
Axel Buguin1, Min-Hui Li, Pascal Silberzan
1Institut Curie, CNRS UMR 168, Paris, France.
Journal of the American Chemical Society
|January 26, 2006
Abstract:
The production, via soft lithography, of micron-sized thermoresponsive pillars made of side-on nematic LCE leads to the formation of surface-responsive structures. The individual, monodisperse pillars, when cut out from the surface, behave as micro-actuators, showing contraction of around 35% at the nematic to isotropic phase transition.

