Related papers: Light-induced swirling and locomotion
An elastomer swelling actuator deforms by absorbing a fluid, thus generating mechanical movement. We show that depositing small droplets of low molecular weight liquid crystal on liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) films leads to shape changes…
Cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers have interesting and potentially very useful photonic properties. In an ideal monodomain configuration of these materials, one finds a Bragg-reflection of light in a narrow wavelength range and a…
Active elastomeric liquid crystal particles with initial cylindrical shapes are obtained by means of soft lithography and polymerization in a strong magnetic field. Gold nanocrystals infiltrated into these particles mediate energy transfer…
Certain cephalopods can dynamically camouflage by altering both skin texture and color to match their surroundings. Inspired by this capability, we present a cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer-liquid crystal elastomer (CLCE-LCE) bilayer…
In this paper, we speculate on a possible application of Liquid Crystal Elastomers to the field of soft robotics. In particular, we study a concept for limbless locomotion that is amenable to miniaturisation. For this purpose, we formulate…
Electrical modulation and switching of photoluminescence (PL) have been demonstrated in pure deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (DHFLC) material. The PL intensity increases and peak position shifts towards lower wavelength above a…
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…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are elastomeric networks with rod-like mesogens that reorient under load. In polydomain LCEs, this reorientation drives a polydomain-to-monodomain transition that produces a soft-elastic plateau. Coupling…
Liquid crystalline polymers are materials of considerable scientific interest and technological value to society [1-3]. An important subset of such materials exhibit rubber-like elasticity; these can combine the remarkable optical…
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…
Light forces induced by scattering and absorption in elastic dielectrics lead to local density modulations and deformations. These perturbations in turn modify light propagation in the medium and generate an intricate nonlinear response. We…
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…
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…
The blue phases are observed in highly chiral liquid crystalline compositions that nascently organize into a three-dimensional, crystalline nanostructure. The periodicity of the unit cell lattice parameters is on the order of the wavelength…
Nematic elastomers are a particular class of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) that exhibit both liquid-crystalline order and rubber (entropic) elasticity. This combination makes them stimuli-responsive soft materials with a number of…
Thin bilayers made of elastic sheets with different strain recoveries can be used for dynamic shape morphing through ambient stimuli, such as temperature, mass diffusion, and light. As a fundamentally different approach to designing…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are rubber-like solids that incorporate nematic mesogens (stiff rod-like molecules) as a part of their polymer chains. In recent years, isotropic-genesis, polydomain liquid crystal elastomers (I-PLCEs) has…
We study experimentally the motion of non-deformable microbeads in a linear shear flow close to a wall bearing a thin and soft polymer layer. Combining microfluidics and 3D optical tracking, we demonstrate that the steady-state bead/surface…
Electrically-controlled dynamics of fluids and particles at microscales is a fascinating area of research with applications ranging from microfluidics and sensing to sorting of biomolecules. The driving mechanisms are electric forces acting…
Polarization dependence of opto-mechanical behavior of monodomain photochromic glassy liquid crystal (LC) polymers under polarized ultraviolet light (PUV) is studied. Trans-cis photo-isomerization is generally known to be most intense at…