Photothermal Thin Films with Highly Efficient NIR Conversion for Miniaturized Liquid-Crystal Elastomer Actuators.

ABSTRACT: This work presents the development of highly efficient photothermal thin films (PTFs) and the demonstration of their application on miniaturized polymer-based soft actuators. The proposed PTF, which comprises acrylic-based black paint and EGaIn liquid metal (LM) microdroplets, serves as an excellent absorber for efficiently converting near-infrared (NIR) irradiation into heat for actuating liquid-crystal elastomer (LCE) actuators. The introduction of LM microdroplets into the PTFs effectively increases the overall thermal efficiency of PTFs. Miniaturized soft crawlers monolithically integrated with the NIR-driven LCE actuators are also implemented for demonstrating the application of the proposed PTF. The crawler's locomotion, which is inspired by the rectilinear movement of snakes, is gen

SUBMITTER: Wang WY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9330919 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature