Related papers: Stimuli-responsive twist actuators made from soft …

Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…

Interactions between active individuals in animal collectives lead to emergent responses that remain elusive in synthetic soft matter. Here, shape-morphing polymers are used to create bio-inspired transient solids that self-assemble with…

Ferrogels and magnetic elastomers differentiate themselves from other materials by their unique capability of reversibly changing shape and mechanical properties under the influence of an external magnetic field. A crucial issue in the…

This paper contains a thorough investigation of the performance of electrically activated layered soft dielectric composite actuators under plane deformation. Noting that the activation can be induced controlling either the voltage or the…

Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions and liquid crystals are constituted by mesoscopic entities held together by weak forces. Their mechanical moduli are several orders of magnitude lower than those of atomic…

The macroscopic behaviour of active matter arises from nonequilibrium microscopic processes. In soft materials, active stresses typically drive macroscopic shape changes, which in turn alter the geometry constraining the microscopic…

Classical rigid-bodied robotic systems are presented with proven success in theoretical development and industrial applications, are recently challenged by the emergence of soft robotics due to a growing need in physical human-robot…

Soft robotics is a rapidly growing field that spans the fields of chemistry, materials science, and engineering. Due to the diverse background of the field, there have been contrasting naming schemes such as 'intelligent', 'smart' and…

We present a microscopic model of a disordered viscoelastic active solid, i.e. an active material whose long time behaviour is elastic as opposed to viscous. It is composed of filaments, passive crosslinks and molecular motors powered by…

Liquid crystal elastomers contract along their director on heating and recover on cooling, offering great potential as actuators and artificial muscles. If a flat sheet is programmed with a spatially varying director pattern, it will…

Cellular locomotion often involves the motion of thin, elastic filaments, such as cilia and flagella, in viscous environments. The manuscript serves as a general introduction to the topic of modelling microscale elastohydrodynamics. We…

When a rigid object approaches a soft material in a viscous fluid, hydrodynamic stresses arise in the lubricated contact region and deform the soft material. The elastic deformation modifies in turn the flow, hence generating a…

Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…

Thermosensitive microgels are widely studied hybrid systems combining properties of polymers and colloidal particles in a unique way. Due to their complex morphology their interactions and packing, and consequentially the viscoelastcity of…

One characteristic feature of soft matter systems is their strong response to external stimuli. As a consequence they are comparatively easily driven out of their ground state and out of equilibrium, which leads to many of their fascinating…

Shape morphing magnetic soft materials, composed of magnetic particles in a soft polymer matrix, can transform shapes reversibly, remotely, and rapidly, finding diverse applications in actuators, soft robotics, and biomedical devices. To…

The description of the collective magnetorheological effect induced by magnetic field in magnetoactive elastomers is proposed. The condition of consistency is used between magnetic and mechanic momenta of forces exerted on magnetically…

Nematic elastomers are programmable soft materials that display large, reversible and predictable deformation under an external stimulus such as a change in temperature or light. While much of the work in the field has focused on actuation…

Magnetic programming soft machines has great development prospects in the fields of minimally invasive medicine, wearable device and soft robot. However, unrepeatable magnetization and low modulus limits their applications. So far, there…

Ferrogels, i.e., hydrogels loaded with magnetic nanoparticles, have the ability to deform in external magnetic fields. The precise shape of deformation and the alignment of the gel in the field, however, depend on the interplay of several…