화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.131, No.41, 15000-15004, 2009
Micron-Sized Main-Chain Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators with Ultralarge Amplitude Contractions
Responsive surfaces composed of cylindrical or square micrometer-sized thermoresponsive pillars made of thiol-ene nematic main-chain liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) are produced by replica molding. The individual pillars behave as microactuators, showing ultralarge and reversible contractions of around 300-400% at the nematic to isotropic phase transition. The nematic main-chain LCE microactuators described here present contractions as large as the best macroscopic systems reported in the literature. Moreover, the contraction observed for this new system outperforms the best values already reported for other LCE microsystems.