Reversible and Rapid Laser Actuation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Micropillars with Inclusion of Gold Nanoparticles |
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| Authors: | Xiyang Liu Renbo Wei Phong Tran Hoang Xiaogong Wang Tao Liu Patrick Keller |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE), Tsinghua University, Beijing, P.R. China;2. High‐Performance Materials Institute, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA;3. Institut Curie, Centre de Recherche, CNRS UMR 168, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris CEDEX 05, France;4. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA |
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| Abstract: | It is highly desirable for liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) based microactuators to activate and actuate in a highly controlled fashion without perturbing the surrounding environment. To reach this goal, in this study, a novel experimental protocol is developed to successfully incorporate gold nanosphere (AuNS) and gold nanorod (AuNR) into polyacrylate based LCE elastomer to fabricate LCE/AuNR and LCE/AuNS micropillars or microactuators. The effect of gold nanoparticle inclusion has been studied by spectroscopy (UV–vis‐near‐infrared), microscopy (transmission electron microscopy), thermal analysis (differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis), and x‐ray scattering (wide‐angle x‐ray scattering and small‐angle x‐ray scattering). Finite element analysis is performed to examine the feasibility of utilizing the photothermal effect of AuNR/AuNS to enable photothermal actuation of LCE/AuNR and LCE/AuNS micropillars. The comparative experimental studies on the thermal and photothermal actuation behavior of the LCE, LCE/AuNS, and LCE/AuNR micropillar suggested that AuNR is an excellent candidate for developing high‐performance LCE actuators with photothermal actuation capability. With inclusion of less than 1 wt% of AuNR, the very high maximum actuation strain (30%) and rapid response (a few seconds) have been achieved in LCE/AuNR micropillar actuators under 635 nm laser irradiation. |
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| Keywords: | gold nanoparticles liquid crystal elastomer micropillars photothermal actuation stimuli‐responsive materials |
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