Photonic Fibrous Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators

Yun-Long Li; Kai Liu; Hui-Min Wu; Jiu-An Lv

doi:10.1007/s10118-025-3286-x

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Photonic Fibrous Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Updated：2025-07-14

- Photonic Fibrous Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators
- Photonic Fibrous Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators
- 高分子科学（英文） 2025年43卷第4期页码：597-604
- Affiliations：
  
  a.Department of Materials Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  b.Key Laboratory of 3D Micro/Nano Fabrication and Characterization of Zhejiang Province, School of Engineering, Westlake University, Hangzhou 310024, China
  c.Institute of Advanced Technology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou 310024, China
- Author bio：
  
  lvjiuan@westlake.edu.cn
- Funds：
  
  This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52273111 and 51873197), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (No. LR22E030004), and the Foundation of Westlake University. The authors thank Wenjing Cao from the Instrumentation and Service Center for Physical Sciences and Dr. Zhong Chen from the Instrumentation and Service Center for Molecular Sciences at Westlake University for their technical services and support.;Electronic supplementary information (ESI) is available free of charge in the online version of this article at http://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-025-3286-x.
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-025-3286-x
  中图分类号：
- 收稿：2024-11-19，
  
  修回：2024-12-14，
  
  录用：2024-12-15，
  
  网络首发：2025-02-10，
  
  纸质出版：2025-04-01
- Accepted：
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Li, Y. L.; Liu, K.; Wu, H. M.; Lv, J. A. Photonic fibrous liquid crystal elastomer actuators. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 597–604

Yun-Long Li, Kai Liu, Hui-Min Wu, et al. Photonic Fibrous Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2025, 43(4): 597-604.
Li, Y. L.; Liu, K.; Wu, H. M.; Lv, J. A. Photonic fibrous liquid crystal elastomer actuators. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 597–604 DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3286-x.

Yun-Long Li, Kai Liu, Hui-Min Wu, et al. Photonic Fibrous Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2025, 43(4): 597-604. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3286-x.

摘要

A tubular-mold-based processing technology to prepare fibrous CLCE actuators

and the prepared actuators exhibit the capabilities to dynamically switch structural colors and geometrical shapes by mechanical

temperature

or light stimuli.

Abstract

Photonic fibrous soft actuators that can modulate light and produce responsive deformation would have broad technological implications in areas

ranging from smart textiles and intelligent artificial muscles to medical devices. However

creating such multifunctional soft actuators has proved tremendously challenging. Here

we report novel cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer (CLCE) based photonic fibrous soft actuators (PFSAs). CLCE can serve as chiral photonic soft active material and allow for multiresponse in shapes and colors. We leveraged a tubular-mold-based processing technology to prepare fibrous CLCE actuators

and the prepared actuators exhibit the capabilities to dynamically switch structural colors and geometrical shapes by mechanical

temperature

or light stimuli. CLCE-based PFSAs demonstrate diverse functionalities

including visual weight feedback

optically driven object manipulation

and light driven locomotion. It is anticipated that our PFSAs would offer many new possibilities for developing advanced soft actuators.

关键词

Keywords

references

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