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Liquid crystals

Printed actuators in a flap

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 614–615 (2009)Cite this article

Solid liquid crystals couple orientational order and mechanical strain, enabling fundamentally new mechanisms of actuation. Depositing the materials using inkjet printing allows precise control of their shapes and composition, producing devices with new microfluidic applications.

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Figure 1: Mechanism of light-induced bending in a liquid-crystal elastomer.
Figure 2: Non-reciprocal motion made possible by two bend regions of the actuator.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peter Palffy-Muhoray is at the Liquid Crystal Institute, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242, USA. mpalffy@cpip.kent.edu,

    Peter Palffy-Muhoray

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  1. Peter Palffy-Muhoray
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Palffy-Muhoray, P. Printed actuators in a flap. Nature Mater 8, 614–615 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2502

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