Effects of chain extender and crosslinking density of liquid crystal elastomers used in sequential actuators

초록

Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are promising materials for soft actuators due to their thermally responsive and programmable deformation behaviors. In this study, eight types of LCEs were synthesized by systematically varying the chain extender length, chemical structure, and crosslinking density through a thiol-ene reaction. The thermal and mechanical properties of these LCEs, including glass transition temperature, nematic to isotropic transition temperature, Young's modulus, and viscoelasticity, were thoroughly analyzed in relation to molecular structure and network density. Based on the differences in actuation temperatures among the synthesized LCEs, we fabricated sequential soft actuators capable of programming, stepwise 3D folding.

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