Reversible Photo Actuated Bulk Nanocomposite with Nematic Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Matrix

Li, Chensha; Huang, Xuezhen; Li, Chenhui; Jiang, Hongrui

doi:10.1080/15421406.2014.953748

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(50 reference statements)

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“…While the research and development on light-driven liquid crystalline polymers and elastomers are continuing, there is a parallel development of nanocomposites from these fascinating materials. It is worth noting that photoresponsive liquid crystalline nanoparticles have already been realized. , Carbon nanotubes, graphene derivatives, gold nanoparticles, and upconversion nanoparticles have been embedded into the liquid crystalline polymer and elastomer matrices in the hope of enhancing their existing properties or enabling new properties and phenomena. − In the following, we present the recent developments in this area of LC nanaoscience.…”

Section: Light-driven Liquid Crystalline Polymers and Elastomersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light-Driven Liquid Crystalline Materials: From Photo-Induced Phase Transitions and Property Modulations to Applications

2016

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Light-driven phenomena both in living systems and nonliving materials have enabled truly fascinating and incredible dynamic architectures with terrific forms and functions. Recently, liquid crystalline materials endowed with photoresponsive capability have emerged as enticing systems. In this Review, we focus on the developments of light-driven liquid crystalline materials containing photochromic components over the past decade. Design and synthesis of photochromic liquid crystals (LCs), photoinduced phase transitions in LC, and photoalignment and photoorientation of LCs have been covered. Photomodulation of pitch, polarization, lattice constant and handedness inversion of chiral LCs is discussed. Light-driven phenomena and properties of liquid crystalline polymers, elastomers, and networks have also been analyzed. The applications of photoinduced phase transitions, photoalignment, photomodulation of chiral LCs, and photomobile polymers have been highlighted wherever appropriate. The combination of photochromism, liquid crystallinity, and fabrication techniques has enabled some fascinating functional materials which can be driven by ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light irradiation. Nanoscale particles have been incorporated to widen and diversify the scope of the light-driven liquid crystalline materials. The developed materials possess huge potential for applications in optics, photonics, adaptive materials, nanotechnology, etc. The challenges and opportunities in this area are discussed at the end of the Review.

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Section: Light-driven Liquid Crystalline Polymers and Elastomersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Light-Driven Liquid Crystalline Materials: From Photo-Induced Phase Transitions and Property Modulations to Applications

2016

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“…Such LCE materials are generally fabricated through the incorporation of light-absorbing components with LCE matrices, the light-absorbing components absorb and convert light energy into heat which then drives the deformations of LCE materials [9,32]. Carbon nanotubes [33][34][35][36][37][38][39], graphene materials [40][41][42][43], noble metallic nanoparticles [44][45][46][47][48][49][50], and conjugated polymer particles [51] have been proved to be the effective components of photothermal conversion. However, the heterogeneity because of hetero-phase structure and agglomeration of particles can hamper the performances of LCE materials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photo-Actuation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Materials Doped with Visible Absorber Dyes under Quasi-Daylight

Qin

Yang

et al. 2019

Polymers

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We studied the effect of visible absorber dyes on the photo-actuation performances of liquid crystalline elastomer (LCE) materials under quasi-daylight irradiation. The dye-doped LCE materials were prepared through infiltrating visible absorber dyes into a polysiloxane-based LCE matrix based on its solvent-swollen characteristic. They demonstrated well absorption properties in visible spectrum range and performed strong actuation upon the irradiation from quasi-daylight source, thus indicating that the presence of visible absorber dyes effectively sensitized the LCE materials to light irradiation since the light energy was absorbed by the dyes and then converted into heat to trigger the phase change of LCE matrix. The photo-actuation properties of dye-doped LCE materials with different visible absorber dyes, varied dye contents, and irradiation intensities were investigated. It was shown that the visible absorber dyes with different absorption bands created different photo-actuation performances of LCE materials, the one whose absorption band is near the intensity peak position of quasi-daylight spectrum created the optimum photo-actuation performance. The result disclosed a valuable light utilization way for photo-controlled LCE materials since it revealed that a light-absorbing dye, whose absorption band is in the high intensity region of light spectrum, is capable of effectively utilizing light energy to drive the actuation of LCE materials.

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“…Researchers have fabricated AZO-CLCP nanocomposites capable of photo-induced deformation upon exposure to near-infrared light or visible light by introducing upconversion nanophosphors into matrices [25,26]. Through the incorporation of polyethylene films, a poly vinyl alcohol matrix or a polyurethane network with CLCPs or LCEs, the materials obtained good forming capabilities, mechanical features and recyclable utilization [16,17,18,27,28,29,30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene-typed materials have been widely studied for their extraordinary physical properties, such as good absorption in the visible/near-infrared region, high mechanical strengths and conductivities, etc [31]. Therefore, CNTs and graphene-typed materials have been successfully incorporated into CLCPs and LCEs to improve the materials’ mechanical properties, and their unique photo-thermal conversion effect and high thermal conductivities make them efficient nanoscale heaters to generate localized heating upon light irradiation, thereby inducing the LC-to-isotropy phase transition of matrices, and hence the reversible deformation of CLCP or LCE materials [27,28,29,30,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41]. CNTs can obviously affect the structure and property of incorporated organic molecules by noncovalent interactions [31], it has been reported that the CNTs with aligned nanostructure could effectively orient the mesogens of CLCPs along the axis of CNTs [42].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photo Actuation Performance of Nanotube Sheet Incorporated Azobenzene Crosslinked Liquid Crystalline Polymer Nanocomposite

Meng

Yu-chang

et al. 2019

Polymers

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Crosslinked liquid crystalline polymers (CLCPs) containing azobenzene (AZO-CLCPs) are a type of promising material due to their significance in the design of light-driven smart actuators. Developing AZO-CLCP composites by incorporating AZO-CLCPs with other materials is an effective way of enhancing their practicability. Herein, we report an AZO-CLCP/CNT nanocomposite prepared by the in situ polymerization of diacrylates containing azobenzene chromophores on carbon nanotube (CNT) sheets. The liquid crystal phase structure of CLCP matrix was evidenced by the two-dimensional X-ray scattering. The prepared pure AZO-CLCP films and AZO-CLCP/CNT nanocomposite films demonstrated strong reversible photo-triggered deformation under the irradiation of UV light at 366 nm of wavelength, as a result of photo-induced isomerization of azobenzene moieties in the polymer network. But compared to pure AZO-CLCP films, the AZO-CLCP/CNT nanocomposite films could much more rapidly return to their initial shapes after the UV light irradiation was removed due to the elasticity effect of CNT sheets. The deformation behavior of AZO-CLCP/CNT nanocomposite films under the light irradiation was also different from that of the pure AZO-CLCP films due to the interfacial interaction between a polymer network and CNT sheet. Furthermore, incorporation of a CNT sheet remarkably increased the mechanical strength and robustness of the material. We also used this AZO-CLCP/CNT nanocomposite as a microvalve membrane actuator, which can be controlled by light, for a conceptual device of a microfluidic system. The results showed that this AZO-CLCP/CNT nanocomposite may have great potential in smart actuator applications for biological engineering, medical treatment, environment detection and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), etc.

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Reversible Photo Actuated Bulk Nanocomposite with Nematic Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Matrix

Cited by 14 publications

References 41 publications

Light-Driven Liquid Crystalline Materials: From Photo-Induced Phase Transitions and Property Modulations to Applications

Light-Driven Liquid Crystalline Materials: From Photo-Induced Phase Transitions and Property Modulations to Applications

Photo-Actuation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Materials Doped with Visible Absorber Dyes under Quasi-Daylight

Photo Actuation Performance of Nanotube Sheet Incorporated Azobenzene Crosslinked Liquid Crystalline Polymer Nanocomposite

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