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Updated: Oct 10, 2025
Microfluidic Preparation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators
Published on: May 20, 2018
Thermo- and Mechanochromic Camouflage and Self-Healing in Biomimetic Soft Actuators Based on Liquid Crystal
Zhongcheng Liu1, Hari Krishna Bisoyi2, Yinliang Huang1
1Institute of Advanced Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and Jiangsu Province Hi-Tech Key Laboratory for Biomedical Research, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China.
Abstract:
In nature, many mysterious creatures capable of deformation camouflage, color camouflage, and self-healing have inspired scientists to develop various biomimetic soft robots. However, the systematic integration of all the above functionalities into a single soft actuator system still remains a challenge. Here we chemically introduce a multi-stimuli-responsive tetraarylsuccinonitrile (TASN) chromophore into a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) network through a facile thiol-ene photoaddition method. The obtained TASN-LCE soft actuators not only exhibit reversible shape-morphing and reversible color-changing behavior in response to heat and mechanical compression, but also show excellent self-healing, reprogramming and recycling characteristics. We hope that such a TASN-LCE actuator system endowed with dynamic distortion, thermo- and mechano-chromic camouflage, and self-healing functionalities would pave the way for further development of multifunctional biomimetic soft robotic devices.
