Light-Activated Elongation/Shortening and Twisting of a Nematic Elastomer Balloon

Nematic elastomer balloons with inflation-induced axial contraction and shear/torsion effect can be used as actuators for soft robots, artificial muscles, and biomedical instruments. The nematic elastomer can also generate drastic shape changes under illumination, and thus light can be utilized to activate the deformation of nematic elastomer balloons with huge advantages of being accurate, fast, untethered, and environmentally sustainable without chemical byproducts. To explore light-activated deformation behaviors of the balloon, a phenomenological relationship between light intensity and material parameters describing polymer backbone anisotropy is proposed from experiments, and a theoretical model of an optically-responsive nematic elastomer balloon is established based on the nematic elastomer theory. Various light-activated elongation/shortening and twisting behaviors in the cases of free-standing and axial-loading are presented and their mechanisms are elucidated. The light intensity and initial mesogen angle have great influences on the light-activated deformations including the radius, length, shearing angle and mesogen angle. Light can be easily controlled to trigger rich deformation processes, including elongation/shortening and torsion. The results of this paper are expected to promote the understanding of the light-activated deformation behaviors of the nematic elastomer balloon, and the applications in light-activated actuators and machines.