Soft actuators made of polymeric liquid crystals and nanostructures

Soft actuators are recognized as the intelligent robotics of the future. The main difference with other systems is the degree of freedom present and the shape of the stimuli. In this work, we focus on light stimuli and how light interacts with nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and hematite nanoparticles. We prepared a monomer based on azo compounds derived from methyl red. Methyl red is known as a photoisomerization agent. LLiquid crystal polymers with azo compounds exhibit photoisomerization with a lower degree of freedom of molecular reorientation than non-polymeric systems. However, photoisomerization not only exerts a transition order-disorder but also generates a stress relaxation process between the polymer chains. Depending on the percentage of components is possible to build different configurations with more or less crosslinked degrees. To incorporate monomers that only have one polymerizable side is possible to obtain an elastomer system and if only using monomers with two polymerizable sides the crosslinking is higher. The incorporation of nanomaterials allows for modifying mechanical properties and can also incorporate some degree of polarization.