Digital Light Processing of Liquid Crystal Elastomers

Abstract

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are ideal candidates for artificial muscles, mechanical actuators, and bio-manipulators due to the combined effect of rubber elasticity and the anisotropic order. By controlling the arrangement of LC mesogenic monomers at the molecular level, the deformation control of the entire LCE soft actuator can be achieved. Here we introduce the use of digital light processing (DLP) to 3D print LCE thin film actuators. Through sliced printing followed by the layer-by-layer accumulation, we simultaneously achieve the purpose of ensuring accuracy (the thickness of each layer is 10-20 um) and breaking the LCE film thickness limit (the overall thickness can be up to 800 um). In addition, this work also shows its programmability. The orderly molecular arrangement can be controlled by ranging the sliding speed, and that the bending deformation can be formed by combining layers of different order parameters.