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<p>Solid state thermosalience—a sudden exertion of an expansive or contractive physical force
following a temperature change in a solid state compound—is rare, few are reversible systems,
and most of these are limited to a dozen or so cycles before the crystal degrades or they reverse
slowly over the course of many minutes or even hours. In this work, we show a fully reversible
actuator that is stable at room temperature for multiple years and is capable of actuation for more
than two hundred cycles at near ambient temperature. Specifically, the crystals shrink to 90% of
its original length instantaneously upon heating beyond 45 °C and expands back to its original
length upon cooling below 35 °C. This temperature regime is important because it occurs around
physiologically important temperatures. Furthermore, the phase transition occurs instantaneously,
with little obvious hysteresis, allowing us to create real-time actuating thermal fuses that cycle
between on and off rapidly.
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