Electric Field‐Driven Dielectrophoretic Elastomer Actuators (Adv. Funct. Mater. 13/2023)

Materials and Wireless Microfluidic Systems for Electronics Capable of Chemical Dissolution on Demand (Adv. Funct. Mater. 92015)

Nematic elastomer actuators

In this seminar, the liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) and their building blocks – liquid crystals and polymers are presented. The specific rod-like molecular shape of liquid crystals forces LCEs to form a special molecular distribution of the underlying polymer network. This allows them expand up to 400 % with temperature, which could be used in applications. The physics of this spontaneous dis...

Helical dielectric elastomer actuators

This paper presents a new type of contractile polymer-based electromechanical linear actuator. The device belongs to the class of dielectric elastomer actuators, which are typically capable of undergoing large deformations induced by an applied electric field. It is based on a novel helical configuration, suitable for the generation of electrically driven axial contractions and radial expansion...

On designing dielectric elastomer actuators

Subject to a voltage, a dielectric elastomer can deform substantially, making it a desirable material for actuators. Designing such an actuator, however, has been challenging due to nonlinear equations of state, as well as multiple modes of failure, parameters of design, and measures of performance. This paper explores these issues, using a spring-roll actuator as an example. We formulate the e...

Metamaterials: Snapping Mechanical Metamaterials under Tension (Adv. Mater. 39/2015).

By exploiting snap-through instabilities, D. Pasini and co-workers design a damage-tolerant mechanical metamaterial that snaps sequentially under tension, thereby accommodating a very large deformation up to 150%. On page 5931, they describe how the nonlinear mechanical response of the metamaterial can be robustly programmed by tuning the architecture of its unit cell.