Abstract:Along with the rapid development of hybrid electronic-photonic systems, multifunctional devices with dynamic responses have been widely investigated for improving many optoelectronic applications. For years, microelectro-opto-mechanical systems (MEOMS), one of the major approaches to realizing multifunctionality, have demonstrated profound reconfigurability and great reliability. However, modern MEOMS still suffer from limitations in modulation depth, actuation voltage, or miniaturization. Here, we demonstrate… Show more
“…The working principle is demonstrated in Figure . There have been extensive applications of VO 2 ‐based MEMS, such as torsional micromuscles, electrical switches, and electro‐optic logic gates . In addition to heat, these devices can also sensitively respond to electric field, light, and strain, which enables the multiresponsive mechanical systems and broadens their application range.…”
Actuators that convert other forms of energy to mechanical energy have attracted extensive interest for their critical applications in microelectromechanical systems and miniature robotics. Recently, it is discovered that vanadium dioxide (VO 2 )-based microscale bimorph actuators demonstrate comprehensive superiority of actuation performances, taking the good of the giant theoretical power density (7 J cm −3 ) and ultrafast response (∼picosecond) of crystalline VO 2 , while they still suffer from the intrinsic shortcomings of complex structures. Here, "single-crystalline VO 2 actuators" (SCVAs) that have unique self-bending behavior upon temperature change are reported. This is realized by facilely and precisely controlling the phase structures via lateral stoichiometry-engineering in VO 2 nanobeams at the nanoscale level. These SCVAs exhibit remarkable actuation performances and admirable stability, which are equivalent or even superior to the reported VO 2 -based conventional bimorph actuators. It is noteworthy that the gradual, reversible, and predictable bending of SCVAs enables a precise actuation control of related mechanics, such as the quantitative wind detector and thermal micromechanical claw. This work demonstrates the possibility of this strategy to enable single crystalline actuators excellent performance by internally lateral and gradual strain-engineering.
“…The working principle is demonstrated in Figure . There have been extensive applications of VO 2 ‐based MEMS, such as torsional micromuscles, electrical switches, and electro‐optic logic gates . In addition to heat, these devices can also sensitively respond to electric field, light, and strain, which enables the multiresponsive mechanical systems and broadens their application range.…”
Actuators that convert other forms of energy to mechanical energy have attracted extensive interest for their critical applications in microelectromechanical systems and miniature robotics. Recently, it is discovered that vanadium dioxide (VO 2 )-based microscale bimorph actuators demonstrate comprehensive superiority of actuation performances, taking the good of the giant theoretical power density (7 J cm −3 ) and ultrafast response (∼picosecond) of crystalline VO 2 , while they still suffer from the intrinsic shortcomings of complex structures. Here, "single-crystalline VO 2 actuators" (SCVAs) that have unique self-bending behavior upon temperature change are reported. This is realized by facilely and precisely controlling the phase structures via lateral stoichiometry-engineering in VO 2 nanobeams at the nanoscale level. These SCVAs exhibit remarkable actuation performances and admirable stability, which are equivalent or even superior to the reported VO 2 -based conventional bimorph actuators. It is noteworthy that the gradual, reversible, and predictable bending of SCVAs enables a precise actuation control of related mechanics, such as the quantitative wind detector and thermal micromechanical claw. This work demonstrates the possibility of this strategy to enable single crystalline actuators excellent performance by internally lateral and gradual strain-engineering.
“…To control the metamaterial more actively, localized resistive heating was employed to drive the thermal actuators to modulate the transmission amplitude 50,89,90 . Integrating phase-transition materials with MEMS actuators to generate more degrees of freedom in controlling the metamaterial response provided a multifunctional micro-electro-opto-mechanical system (MEOMS) platform towards metadevices 91 .Fig. 3Modulators based on MEMS metamaterials. a The first MEMS tunable metamaterials enabled by thermal actuators for amplitude modulation 87 .…”
Electromagnetic metamaterials, which are a major type of artificially engineered materials, have boosted the development of optical and photonic devices due to their unprecedented and controllable effective properties, including electric permittivity and magnetic permeability. Metamaterials consist of arrays of subwavelength unit cells, which are also known as meta-atoms. Importantly, the effective properties of metamaterials are mainly determined by the geometry of the constituting subwavelength unit cells rather than their chemical composition, enabling versatile designs of their electromagnetic properties. Recent research has mainly focused on reconfigurable, tunable, and nonlinear metamaterials towards the development of metamaterial devices, namely, metadevices, via integrating actuation mechanisms and quantum materials with meta-atoms. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), or microsystems, provide powerful platforms for the manipulation of the effective properties of metamaterials and the integration of abundant functions with metamaterials. In this review, we will introduce the fundamentals of metamaterials, approaches to integrate MEMS with metamaterials, functional metadevices from the synergy, and outlooks for metamaterial-enabled photonic devices.
“…Various advance mechanical devices with sizes ranging from tens of microns to millimeters, such as mechanical claws, [22] torsional micromuscles, [23] micromechanical optical modulator, [24] efficient micromechanical resonators, [25] and so on, have been fabricated using this amazing material (VO 2 ); they have demonstrated outstanding performances driven by various external stimuli, including heat, light, and electricity. However, owing to the fact that the colossal strain change of VO 2 can only carry out along c R -axis, the strain of randomly oriented VO 2 domains in polycrystalline thin film is mainly canceled out.…”
The emerging soft robots have attracted increasing interests and gotten rapidly developed, but it is still challenging to substantially promote their response speed and work density. In addition, the wireless way to conveniently trigger the devices, especially for the centimeter‐scale ones, is highly desired. Herein, the multistimuli‐responsive insect‐scale soft robotics is reported based on a super‐aligned VO2 nanowire arrays (NAs)/carbon nanotube (CNT) bimorph film, comprehensively addressing aforementioned problems. The as‐prepared VO2 NA/CNT bimorph shows improved actuation performance, anisotropic behavior, rapid response to various stimuli (heat, light, and electricity), and multiple movement modes (bending and torsion). Consequently, diverse untethered, insect‐scale soft robots, serving as biomimetic crawler, lifter, gripper, wing of flying robots, torsional robot, and so on are successfully demonstrated. The findings provide an effective strategy to develop high‐performance macroscopic mechanical devices by assembling functional nanostructures.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
