Photoinduced Deformation of Crosslinked Liquid-Crystalline Polymer Film Oriented by a Highly Aligned Carbon Nanotube Sheet

摘要

Photodeformable polymeric materials have recently experienced vigorous development because of their potential applications in various fields, such as artificial muscle, photo-mobile soft actuator, and micro-optomechanical systems (MOMS). Among them, crosslinked liquid-crystalline polymers (CLCPs) containing photochromic moieties such as azobenzene may represent one of the most studied systems, with a bending deformation owing to a photoinduced change in the molecular orientation of mesogens triggered by the trans-cis photoisomerization in azobenzene. Various light-driven soft actuators including plastic motors, inchworm-like walkers, flexible microrobots, high-frequency oscillators, and artificial cilia have been made from the CLCPs. For the above applications, it is critical to control the bending direction of the CLCPs which depends on the orientation format of the mesogens. For instance, a homogeneously oriented CLCP film bent towards the light source along the oriented direction of mesogens, while a homeotropically oriented film bent away from the light source.