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FAQ: Bioinspired Liquid Crystal Actuators for Programmable Climbing and Shape-Shifting Motion
TL;DR
Researchers developed soft robots using liquid crystal elastomers that can climb poles and grasp objects remotely, offering advantages for search-and-rescue and biomedical applications.
The system integrates photothermal-responsive silver nanowires with mechanically pre-aligned liquid crystal elastomers to enable reversible helix-plane transformation and NIR-controlled climbing through molecular orientation programming.
These soft robots could perform minimally invasive surgeries and explore hazardous environments, making medical procedures safer and search-and-rescue operations more effective.
Soft robots inspired by koalas and vines can climb poles and grip objects using light-controlled shape-shifting materials without traditional motors.
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The research presents a hierarchical design strategy that engineers liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) into programmable structures capable of reversible shape-morphing, NIR-controlled climbing, and topology-dependent locking behaviors for soft robotic systems.
It addresses challenges in precise shape-morphing and adaptive grasping for soft robots, enabling remote operation, terrain-adaptive grasping, and bioinspired motion patterns like climbing, which is important for applications in unstructured environments, search-and-rescue, biomedical, and micro-manipulation fields.
They work by integrating photothermal-responsive silver nanowires with mechanically pre-aligned LCEs in a tri-layer structure (AgNW/LCE/PI), which enables efficient photothermal-mechanical conversion under NIR light, allowing reversible deformation, gripping, and climbing through controlled molecular orientation and topological programming.
Researchers from Jiangsu University conducted this research, and it was reported on October 11, 2025, in the journal Chinese Journal of Polymer Science with DOI: 10.1007/s10118-025-3418-3.
The actuators demonstrated reversible helix-plane transformation, NIR-controlled climbing, terrain-adaptive grasping, vine-like curling, koala-like pole climbing, and topology-dependent locking behaviors including Möbius ring actuation with self-locking deformation.
They are applicable in unstructured environments, search-and-rescue operations, biomedical fields, minimally invasive manipulation, micro-manipulation, and scenarios requiring autonomous soft robots with bioinspired motion control.
LCE films were fabricated via a two-stage thiol-acrylate reaction with helical pre-programming reaching 1000% strain, integrated with silver nanowire photothermal layers, and molecular alignment was verified by Small-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) patterns.
The koala-inspired climbing device advanced ~5–7 mm per cycle and climbed inclined rods while loaded with 1.6 g, with the actuators showing controllable bending angles and stable cyclic performance under illumination.
Unlike traditional fabrication methods that struggle to encode complex molecular orientations and topological pathways, this hierarchical design strategy enables precise, reversible helical actuation and climbing behavior through controlled molecular orientation and topology.
The work points toward autonomous soft robots for unstructured environments, demonstrates how controlling molecular orientation and topology enables diverse motion patterns, and shows potential for remote, adaptable shape-morphing systems in various practical applications.
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