Light-powered soft steam engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic swimming

Li, Zhiwei; Myung, Nosang V.; Yin, Yadong

doi:10.1126/scirobotics.abi4523

Cited by 125 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…[125] Li et al developed a steam-driven photothermal oscillator to perform continuous or pulsed, damped harmonic mechanical oscillations. [129] As shown in Figure 13a-i,ii, a hydrogel containing Fe 3 O 4 /Cu hybrid nanorods served as the key component of the oscillator, which could convert light into heat and generate steam bubbles. Based on this soft steam engine, they further developed an untethered biomimetic neuston-like robot (Figure 13a-iii-v).…”

Section: Applications Based On Locomotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recent Advances in Stimuli‐Responsive Shape‐Morphing Hydrogels

Liu

Gao

Chen

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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Inspired by shape-morphing organisms in nature, researchers have developed various hydrogels with stimuli-responsive swelling, shrinking, bending, folding, origami, rolling, twisting, or locomotion. These smart hydrogels are usually created by patterning or 4D printing. The shape morphing of hydrogels allows the fabrication of helixing, twisting, and rolling microstructures, all of which are hard to reproduce directly by ordinary techniques. More importantly, under external stimuli (e.g., solvent, humidity, temperature, light, pH, and electric/magnetic fields), many hydrogels exhibit recoverable shape morphing and thus find promising applications in grippers, sensors, valves, soft robotics, etc. Since shape morphing determines the functions of hydrogels in a great number of cases, herein, recent advances of stimuli-responsive hydrogels are summarized, with their types, shape-morphing mechanisms, fabrication methods, shape-morphing modes, and extensive applications covered. The conclusion and perspectives are also presented to guide the design and fabrication of functional hydrogels.

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Section: Applications Based On Locomotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Site-specific swelling/deswelling is an important approach for fabricating complex 3D structures, which are useful in actuators and soft robotic components. Ion inkjet printing [78] and digital printing [66] have been employed to create these [129] Copyright 2018, Elsevier. b) Reproduced with permission.…”

Section: Applications Based On Other Shape-morphing Modesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Advances in Stimuli‐Responsive Shape‐Morphing Hydrogels

Liu

Gao

Chen

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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show abstract

“…In recent years, various self-oscillating systems based on diverse stimuli-responsive materials are reported, such as hydrogels [ 14 , 15 ], dielectric elastomers [ 16 ], ionic gels [ 17 ], liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) [ 7 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], and thermally responsive polymer materials [ 22 ], etc. Furthermore, a variety of self-sustained motion modes have been constructed, such as bending [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 ], buckling [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ], torsion [ 31 , 32 ], stretching and shrinking [ 33 , 34 ], rolling [ 35 , 36 ], swimming [ 9 ], swinging [ 37 , 38 ], vibration [ 39 , 40 , 41 ], jumping [ 42 , 43 , 44 ], rotation [ 45 ], eversion or inversion [ 46 , 47 ], and even synchronized motion of several coupled self-oscillators [ 48 ]. These self-sustained motions often originate from nonlinear feedback mechanisms including self-shadowing [ 3 , 27 , 28 ], coupling of liquid volatilization and membrane deformation [ 49 ], coupling mechanism among air expansion and liquid column movement [ 50 ], and coupling of plate buckling and chemical reaction [ 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Jumping of a Liquid Crystal Elastomer Balloon under Steady Illumination

Jin

Dai

et al. 2022

Polymers

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Self-oscillation capable of maintaining periodic motion upon constant stimulus has potential applications in the fields of autonomous robotics, energy-generation devices, mechano-logistic devices, sensors, and so on. Inspired by the active jumping of kangaroos and frogs in nature, we proposed a self-jumping liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) balloon under steady illumination. Based on the balloon contact model and dynamic LCE model, a nonlinear dynamic model of a self-jumping LCE balloon under steady illumination was formulated and numerically calculated by the Runge–Kutta method. The results indicated that there exist two typical motion regimes for LCE balloon under steady illumination: the static regime and the self-jumping regime. The self-jumping of LCE balloon originates from its expansion during contact with a rigid surface, and the self-jumping can be maintained by absorbing light energy to compensate for the damping dissipation. In addition, the critical conditions for triggering self-jumping and the effects of several key system parameters on its frequency and amplitude were investigated in detail. The self-jumping LCE hollow balloon with larger internal space has greater potential to carry goods or equipment, and may open a new insight into the development of mobile robotics, soft robotics, sensors, controlled drug delivery, and other miniature device applications.

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“…When subjected to external excitations such as light [ 6 ], chemicals [ 34 ], electric field [ 36 ], magnetic field [ 37 ], and heat [ 38 ], these responsive materials can change their own shape and locomote. Based on various kinds of stimuli-responsive materials, a large number of modes of self-excited motion have also been constructed, such as rolling [ 12 , 18 , 20 , 39 ], bending [ 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ], vibration [ 44 , 45 ], stretching and shrinking [ 46 , 47 ], torsion [ 7 , 48 ], swinging [ 49 , 50 ], swimming [ 51 ], buckling [ 29 , 52 , 53 , 54 ], jumping [ 45 , 55 , 56 ], rotation [ 57 ], eversion or inversion [ 38 , 58 ], and even self-excited synchronized motion of some coupled liquid crystalline oscillators [ 59 ]. The mechanisms of these self-excited motions are explained by the nonlinear feedback mechanisms of the systems, such as the self-shadowing mechanism [ 18 , 60 ], the coupling mechanism among liquid volatilization and membrane deformation [ 16 ], and a combination of finite deformation and chemical reaction [ 32 , 33 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamical Behaviors of a Translating Liquid Crystal Elastomer Fiber in a Linear Temperature Field

Zhou

2022

Polymers

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Liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) fiber with a fixed end in an inhomogeneous temperature field is capable of self-oscillating because of coupling between heat transfer and deformation, and the dynamics of a translating LCE fiber in an inhomogeneous temperature field are worth investigating to widen its applications. In this paper, we propose a theoretic constitutive model and the asymptotic relationship of a LCE fiber translating in a linear temperature field and investigate the dynamical behaviors of a corresponding fiber-mass system. In the three cases of the frame at rest, uniform, and accelerating translation, the fiber-mass system can still self-oscillate, which is determined by the combination of the heat-transfer characteristic time, the temperature gradient, and the thermal expansion coefficient. The self-oscillation is maintained by the energy input from the ambient linear temperature field to compensate for damping dissipation. Meanwhile, the amplitude and frequency of the self-oscillation are not affected by the translating frame for the three cases. Compared with the cases of the frame at rest, the translating frame can change the equilibrium position of the self-oscillation. The results are expected to provide some useful recommendations for the design and motion control in the fields of micro-robots, energy harvesters, and clinical surgical scenarios.

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Light-powered soft steam engines for self-adaptive oscillation and biomimetic swimming

Abstract: Light-powered soft steam engines enable self-adaptive photothermal oscillation and biomimetic neuston-like swimming.

Cited by 125 publications

References 51 publications

Recent Advances in Stimuli‐Responsive Shape‐Morphing Hydrogels

Recent Advances in Stimuli‐Responsive Shape‐Morphing Hydrogels

Self-Jumping of a Liquid Crystal Elastomer Balloon under Steady Illumination

Dynamical Behaviors of a Translating Liquid Crystal Elastomer Fiber in a Linear Temperature Field

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