Layered liquid crystal elastomer actuators

Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are soft, anisotropic materials that exhibit large shape transformations when subjected to various stimuli. Here we demonstrate a facile approach to enhance the out-of-plane work capacity of these materials by an order of magnitude, to nearly 20 J/kg. The enhancement in force output is enabled by the development of a room temperature polymerizable composition used both to prepare individual films, organized via directed self-assembly to retain arrays of topological defect profiles, as well as act as an adhesive to combine the LCE layers. The material actuator is shown to displace a load >2500× heavier than its own weight nearly 0.5 mm.