Search results for "Liquid crystal elastomer"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Mechanical and optical properties of continuously spun fibres of a main-chain smectic A elastomer
2012
Oriented smectic liquid crystal elastomer fibres are prepared with a special wet-spinning technique. The continuous spinning process in principle allows the preparation of fibres with arbitrary length. In comparison to ordinary rubbers, they have unique mechanical properties that qualify them as potential candidates for mechanical actuator applications. We demonstrate that these fibres show a remarkable contraction and extension at the transition from the ordered smectic to the disordered isotropic phase. We characterise their most relevant physical properties, viz. the thermally driven shape changes, stress–strain relations and optical birefringence, by optical and mechanical measurements.
Iris-Like Tunable Aperture Employing Liquid-Crystal Elastomers
2014
A liquid-crystal elastomer (LCE) iris inspired by the human eye is demonstrated. With integrated polyimide-based platinum heaters, the LCE material is thermally actuated. The radial contraction direction, similar to a mammalian iris, is imprinted to the LCE by a custom-designed magnetic field. Actuation of the device is reproducible over multiple cycles and controllable at intermediate contraction states.
Muscular MEMS—the engineering of liquid crystal elastomer actuators
2016
A new class of soft-matter actuator, the liquid crystal elastomer (LCE), shows promise for application in a wide variety of mechanical microsystems. Frequently referred to as an 'artificial muscle', this family of materials exhibits large actuation stroke and generates considerable force, in a compact form which may easily be combined with the structures and devices commonly used in microsystems and MEMS. We show here how standard microfabrication techniques may be used to integrate LCEs into mechanical microsystems and present an in-depth analysis of their mechanical and actuation properties. Using an example from micro-optics and optical MEMS, we demonstrate that their performance and fle…
One-piece micropumps from liquid crystalline core-shell particles
2012
Responsive polymers are low-cost, light weight and flexible, and thus an attractive class of materials for the integration into micromechanical and lab-on-chip systems. Triggered by external stimuli, liquid crystalline elastomers are able to perform mechanical motion and can be utilized as microactuators. Here we present the fabrication of one-piece micropumps from liquid crystalline core-shell elastomer particles via a microfluidic double-emulsion process, the continuous nature of which enables a low-cost and rapid production. The liquid crystalline elastomer shell contains a liquid core, which is reversibly pumped into and out of the particle by actuation of the liquid crystalline shell i…
A thermotropic liquid crystal elastomer micro-actuator with integrated deformable micro-heater
2014
We present a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) actuator with large stroke and fast reaction time. LCEs show a large macroscopic shape change when heated above the phase transition (≈120°C). Buried wafer-level fabricated micro-heaters offer optimal thermal reaction times and compact design of the actuators. A relative length change of λ = 1.28 was obtained with 320 mW power consumption. Heating the device from room temperature takes τrise = 19.7 s, cooling below the phase transition temperature from the fully contracted state needs τfall - 5.6s. We verify that the displacement may be accurately controlled by varying electrical input power.
Elastic Properties of Liquid Crystal Elastomer Balloons
2001
We introduce a method to measure elastic properties of smectic liquid crystalline elastomers. Freely suspended smectic polymer films containing photoreactive groups are inflated to spherical bubbles and crosslinked by UV light irradiation. After crosslinking, the balloon volume is varied and elastic properties of the material are determined from the relation between radius and inner excess pressure. The influence of the network topology on the elastic behaviour is discussed.