Liquid-Crystal-Elastomer-Actuated Reconfigurable Microscale Kirigami Metastructures

Programmable actuation of metastructures with predesigned geometrical configurations has recently drawn significant attention in many applications, such as smart structures, medical devices, soft robotics, prosthetics, and wearable devices. Despite remarkable progress in this field, achieving wireless miniaturized reconfigurable metastructures remains a challenge due to the difficult nature of the fabrication and actuation processes at the micrometer scale. Herein, microscale thermo-responsive reconfigurable metasurfaces using stimuli-responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) is fabricated as an artificial muscle for reconfiguring the 2D microscale kirigami structures. Such structures are fabricated via two-photon polymerization with sub-micrometer precision. Through rationally designed experiments guided by simulations, the optimal formulation of the LCE artificial muscle is explored and the relationship between shape transformation behaviors and geometrical parameters of the kirigami structures is build. As a proof of concept demonstration, the constructs for temperature-dependent switching and information encryption is applied. Such reconfigurable kirigami metastructures have significant potential for boosting the fundamental small-scale metastructure research and the design and fabrication of wireless functional devices, wearables, and soft robots at the microscale as well.

Automated summary

This study focuses on the fabrication of microscale thermo-responsive reconfigurable metasurfaces using stimuli-responsive liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) as artificial muscle, and explores the relationship between shape transformation behaviors and geometrical parameters of the kirigami structures. Additionally, temperature-dependent switching and information encryption applications are demonstrated as proof of concept.