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Updated: Jun 21, 2025
Microfluidic Preparation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators
Published on: May 20, 2018
Coiled Carbon Nanotube Fibers Sheathed by a Reinforced Liquid Crystal Elastomer for Strong and Programmable
Guang Yang1,2, Lizhong Dong2, Ming Ren2
1School of Nano-Technology and Nano-Bionics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Abstract:
Fibers of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) as promising artificial muscle show ultralarge and reversible contractile strokes. However, the contractile force is limited by the poor mechanical properties of the LCE fibers. Herein, we report high-strength LCE fibers by introducing a secondary network into the single-network LCE. The double-network LCE (DNLCE) shows considerable improvements in tensile strength (313.9%) and maximum actuation stress (342.8%) compared to pristine LCE. To facilitate the controllability and application, a coiled artificial muscle fiber consisting of DNLCE-coated carbon nanotube (CNT) fiber is prepared. When electrothermally driven, the artificial muscle fiber outputs a high actuation performance and programmable actuation. Furthermore, by knitting the artificial muscle fibers into origami structures, an intelligent gripper and crawling inchworm robot have been demonstrated. These demonstrations provide promising application scenarios for advanced intelligent systems in the future.
