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Liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) has been intensively utilized in 4D printing techniques to fabricate smart structures with reversible actuation on the basis of appropriate alignment of liquid crystal (LC) molecules. As a non-contact…
Designing flat sheets that can be made to deform into 3D shapes is an area of intense research with applications in micromachines, soft robotics, and medical implants. Thus far, such sheets were designed to adopt a single target shape.…
Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are shape-changing materials that exhibit large deformations in response to applied stimuli. Local control of the orientation of LCEs spatially directs the deformation of these materials to realize…
Stimuli-responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) with a strong coupling of orientational molecular order and rubber-like elasticity, show a great potential as working elements in soft robotics, sensing, transport and propulsion systems.…
Precise manipulation of shape-morphing responsive materials is crucial for applications in soft robotics and adaptive structures. While notable precision has been achieved in thin two-dimensional sheets, an accurate volumetric…
Recent experiments have imposed controlled swelling patterns on thin polymer films, which subsequently buckle into three-dimensional shapes. We develop a solution to the design problem suggested by such systems, namely, if and how one can…
A flat sheet programmed with a planar pattern of spontaneous shape change will morph into a curved surface. Such metric mechanics is seen in growing biological sheets, and may be engineered in actuating soft matter sheets such as…
The shape of liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) with spatial variation in the director orientation can be transformed by exposure to a stimulus. Here, informed by previously reported analytical treatments, we prepare complex spiral…
Liquid Crystalline Elastomers (LCEs) are active materials that are of interest due to their programmable response to various external stimuli such as light and heat. When exposed to these stimuli, the anisotropy in the response of the…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) can undergo large reversible contractions along their nematic director upon heating or illumination. A spatially patterned director within a flat LCE sheet thus encodes a pattern of contraction on heating,…
Inverse design of morphing slender structures with programmable curvature has significant applications in various engineering fields. Most existing studies formulate it as an optimization problem, which requires repeatedly solving the…
Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with…
Liquid crystal elastomers represent a novel class of programmable shape-transforming materials whose shape change trajectory is encoded in the material's nematic director field. Using three-dimensional nonlinear finite element…
Advances in 3D printing technology now enable the precise positioning of microscopic material voxels to form complex structures. Combined with emerging multi-material capabilities and printable responsive materials, this opens new…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are a stimuli-responsive material which has been intensively studied for applications including artificial muscles, shape morphing structures, and soft robotics, due to its capability of large, programmable,…
Smooth and curved microstructural topologies found in nature - from soap films to trabecular bone - have inspired several mimetic design spaces for architected metamaterials and bio-scaffolds. However, the design approaches so far have been…
Conventional optical elements are bulky and limited to specific functionalities, contradicting the increasing demand of miniaturization and multi-functionalities. Optical metasurfaces enable tailoring light-matter interaction at will,…
Electromagnetic metasurfaces have attracted significant interest recently due to their low profile and advantageous applications. Practically, many metasurface designs start with a set of constraints for the radiated far-field, such as…
Elastomers are central to vision-based tactile sensors (VBTSs), where they transduce external contact into observable deformation. Different VBTS architectures, however, require distinct optical and mechanical properties, particularly…
Dynamic shape-morphing soft materials systems are ubiquitous in living organisms; they are also of rapidly increasing relevance to emerging technologies in soft machines, flexible electronics, and smart medicines. Soft matter equipped with…