Reversible Snapping of Constrained Anisotropic Hydrogels Upon Light Stimulations

Creatures, such as Venus flytrap and hummingbirds, capable of rapid predation through snap‐through transition, provide paradigms for the design of soft actuators and robots with fast actions. However, these artificial “snappers” usually need contact stimulations to trigger the flipping. Reported her...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advanced science 2024-07, Vol.11 (26), p.e2402824-n/a
Main Authors: Dai, Chen Fei, Zhu, Qing Li, Khoruzhenko, Olena, Thelen, Michael, Bai, Huiying, Breu, Josef, Du, Miao, Zheng, Qiang, Wu, Zi Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anisotropic hydrogels
Design
Energy
fast actuation
Hydrogels
Magnetic fields
Nanocomposites
Nanoparticles
nanosheets
Robots
snapping
soft actuators
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Summary:Creatures, such as Venus flytrap and hummingbirds, capable of rapid predation through snap‐through transition, provide paradigms for the design of soft actuators and robots with fast actions. However, these artificial “snappers” usually need contact stimulations to trigger the flipping. Reported here is a constrained anisotropic poly(N‐isopropylacrylamide) hydrogel showing fast snapping upon light stimulation. This hydrogel is prepared by flow‐induced orientation of nanosheets (NSs) within a rectangular tube. The precursor containing gold nanoparticles is immediately exposed to UV light for photopolymerization to fix the ordered structure of NSs. Two ends of the slender gel are clamped to form a buckle with bistability nature, which snaps to the other side upon laser irradiation. Systematic experiments are conducted to investigate the influences of power intensity and irradiation angle of the laser, as well as thickness and buckle height of the gel, on the snapping behaviors. The fast snapping is further used to kick a plastic bead and control the switch state. Furthermore, synergetic or oscillated snapping of the gel with two buckles of opposite directions is realized by inclined irradiation of a laser or horizontal irradiation with two lasers, respectively. Such light‐steered snapping of hydrogels should merit designing soft robots, energy harvests, etc. Reversible snap‐through transition is realized in the constrained anisotropic hydrogel strip upon light irradiation, leading to accumulation and sudden release of the elastic energy that produces speedy action and large stroke.
ISSN:2198-3844
2198-3844
DOI:10.1002/advs.202402824