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Updated: Feb 7, 2026

Preparation of Liquid Crystal Networks for Macroscopic Oscillatory Motion Induced by Light
Published on: September 20, 2017
A Multifunctional Dye-doped Liquid Crystal Polymer Actuator: Light-Guided Transportation, Turning in Locomotion, and
Feijie Ge1, Rong Yang2, Xia Tong1
1Département de Chimie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, J1K 2R1, Canada.
Abstract:
A strip of a liquid crystal elastomer doped with a near-infrared dye with one side crosslinked monodomain and the other crosslinked polydomain along the thickness behaves like a multifunctional photoactuator without the need for a support. A flat strip with two ends fixed on substrate surface forms a moving bump under laser scanning, which can be used as light-fueled conveyor to transport an object. Cutting off and laser scanning the bump with two free ends makes a soft and flexible millimeter-scale crawler that can not only move straight and climb an inclined surface, but also undergo light-guided turning to right or left as a result of combined out-of-plane and in-plane actuation. Based on the self-shadowing mechanism, with one end of the strip fixed on substrate surface, it can execute a variety of autonomous arm-like movements under constant laser illumination, such as bending-unbending and twisting, depending on the laser incident angles with respect to the strip actuator.
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