Liquid Crystalline Elastomers as Artificial Muscles
نویسنده
چکیده
We find that low molecular weight liquid crystalline cooperative effects acting over length scales larger than the typical mesh size of a liquid single crystalline elastomer {LSCE), controls the elastomer shape. This result provides a “proof of concept” for the novel suggestion of de Gennes et al. that LSCEs may be used as temperature activated artificial muscles.
منابع مشابه
Isotropic-nematic transition in liquid-crystalline elastomers: lattice model with quenched disorder.
When liquid-crystalline elastomers pass through the isotropic-nematic transition, the orientational order parameter and the elastic strain vary rapidly but smoothly, without the expected first-order discontinuity. This broadening of the phase transition is an important issue for applications of liquid-crystalline elastomers as actuators or artificial muscles. To understand this behavior, we dev...
متن کاملn liquid crystalline elastomer materials
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) exhibit a number of remarkable physical effects, including the unique, high-stroke reversible mechanical actuation when triggered by external stimuli. This article reviews some recent exciting developments in the field of LCE materials with an emphasis on their utilization in actuator applications. Such applications include artificial muscles, industrial man...
متن کاملMicro-actuators: when artificial muscles made of nematic liquid crystal elastomers meet soft lithography.
The production, via soft lithography, of micron-sized thermoresponsive pillars made of side-on nematic LCE leads to the formation of surface-responsive structures. The individual, monodisperse pillars, when cut out from the surface, behave as micro-actuators, showing contraction of around 35% at the nematic to isotropic phase transition.
متن کاملNanoparticle-Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Composites
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) exhibit a number of remarkable physical effects, including a uniquely high-stroke reversible mechanical actuation triggered by external stimuli. Fundamentally, all such stimuli affect the degree of liquid crystalline order in the polymer chains cross-linked into an elastic network. Heat and the resulting thermal actuation act by promoting entropic disorder, ...
متن کاملOpto-mechanical effect in photoactive nematic side-chain liquid-crystalline elastomers.
The mechanical behaviour of monodomain nematic side-chain liquid-crystalline elastomers containing azoderivatives as pendant groups or crosslinkers has been studied under UV irradiation and in the darkness at different temperatures. From the evaluation of the opto-mechanical experiments, the mechanical efficiency, kinetic rates, activation energies and the isomerization mechanism of the azocomp...
متن کامل