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Microfluidic Preparation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators
Published on: May 20, 2018
Chiral Liquid Crystalline Elastomer for Twisting Motion without Preset Alignment of Mesogens
Lu Yin1,2, Teng-Fei Miao1, Xiao-Xiao Cheng1
1Suzhou Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Design and Precision Synthesis, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou 215123, China.
Abstract:
A chiral liquid crystalline elastomer (CLCE) actuator is demonstrated. The solution-cast polydomain film of CLCE can twist upon order-disorder phase transition without any preset alignment of mesogens. The handedness of twisting is specific to the molecular chirality of the chiral dopant in the CLCE structure, while the degree of twisting, in terms of helical pitch and diameter, is sensitive to the aspect ratio and the thickness of the CLCE strip as well as the chiral dopant content. This phenomenon appears to stem from the local twisting forces and deformations of randomly oriented helical domains, which cannot cancel each other out due to the chirality and thus result in a macroscopic "chiral" force acting on the CLCE actuator. This finding reveals a materials design for preparing twisting LCE actuators.
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