Circularly Polarized Light‐driven Liquid Crystal Elastomer Actuators

Abstract Photo‐responsive liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) actuator is of paramount significance for emerging applications in soft robotics, biomimetic devices, and adaptive optical devices. However, to achieve circularly polarized light‐driven LCE actuator, which can provide an additional degree of freedom of light in the control method, is still a challenge. Herein, a circularly polarized light‐driven LCE actuator is demonstrated. The actuator is fabricated by bonding a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) film, which is capable of selectively reflecting and transmitting circularly polarized light, with a photothermal agent doped LCE film in splay configuration as a bilayer structure. An electrically controlled optical system with a fast switching ability of circularly polarized light's handedness has been developed to study the circularly polarized light‐response bending property of the proposed actuator under various periodic driven voltage schemes. A crawler driven by circularly polarized light based on CLC‐LCE actuator is demonstrated experimentally with different moving modes. The application of circularly polarized light in the LCE actuator driving provides an additional controlling degree of freedom for photo‐responsive LCE actuators besides the wavelength, spatial distribution, and linear polarization of light, showing wide application prospects in soft robotics, biomimetic technologies, and adaptive optical devices.