Shape-morphing, Locomotion, and optical tunability of light-Induced soft materials based on liquid crystal polymer networks

Yu-Chieh Cheng^1*

¹Department of Electro-Optical Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Yu-Chieh Cheng, email:yu-chieh.cheng@ntut.edu.tw

Nowadays most applications of soft materials in microrobots are rather simple in terms of design and architecture. Here, it is suggested that kirigami‐based techniques can be useful for fabricating complex 3D robotic structures that can be activated with light. External stress fields introduce out‐of‐plane deformation of kirigami film actuators made of liquid crystal networks. Such 2D‐to‐3D structural transformations can give rise to mechanical actuation upon light illumination, thus allowing the realization of kirigami‐based light‐fuelled robotics. This work also focuses on a forward-looking overview of the implication of the LCN-based soft materials. For example, we present tunable random lasing excitation based on a liquid crystal polymer network (LCN) due to its preprogrammed polydomain structures where the presented random lasing modes are capable of optical-tunable characteristics underlying the change of the scattering mechanism of liquid crystalline materials. Furthermore, an LCN-based soft material is capable of tunable dielectric grating through light control. This work demonstrates such light-induced soft materials, whose peculiar advantages of flexible controllability or tenability for a range of photonic applications.

Keywords: Liquid crystals polymer, Soft actuators, Locomotion, Random laser, Tunable optics