Tunable Light-Responsive Polyurethane-urea Elastomer Driven by Photochemical and Photothermal Coupling Mechanism

Light-driven soft actuators based on photoresponsive materials can be used to mimic biological motion, such as hand movements, without involving rigid or bulky electromechanical actuations. However, to our knowledge, no robust photoresponsive material with desireable mechanical and biological properties and relatively simple manufacture exists for robotics and biomedical applications. Herein, we report a new visible-light-responsive thermoplastic elastomer synthesized by introducing photoswitchable moieties (i.e., azobenzene derivatives) into the main chain of poly(ε-caprolactone) based polyurethane urea (PAzo). A PAzo elastomer exhibits controllable light-driven stiffness softening due to its unique nanophase structure in response to light, while possessing excellent hyperelasticity (stretchability of 575.2%, elastic modulus of 17.6 MPa, and strength of 44.0 MPa). A bilayer actuator consisting of PAzo and polyimide films is developed, demonstrating tunable bending modes by varying incident light intensities. Actuation mechanism via photothermal and photochemical coupling effects of a soft-hard nanophase is demonstrated through both experimental and theoretical analyses. We demonstrate an exemplar application of visible-light-controlled soft "fingers" playing a piano on a smartphone. The robustness of the PAzo elastomer and its scalability, in addition to its excellent biocompatibility, opens the door to the development of reproducible light-driven wearable/implantable actuators and lightweight soft robots for clinical applications.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:16

Enthalten in:

ACS applied materials & interfaces - 16(2024), 15 vom: 17. Apr., Seite 19480-19495

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Wu, Lei [VerfasserIn]
Huang, Xia [VerfasserIn]
Wang, Meng [VerfasserIn]
Chen, Jishizhan [VerfasserIn]
Chang, Jinke [VerfasserIn]
Zhang, Han [VerfasserIn]
Zhang, Xuetong [VerfasserIn]
Conn, Andrew [VerfasserIn]
Rossiter, Jonathan [VerfasserIn]
Birchall, Martin [VerfasserIn]
Song, Wenhui [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

8W8T17847W
97343-15-2
Elastomers
Journal Article
Light-driven soft robotics
Nanophase separation
Photochemical stiffness softening
Photoresponsive elastomer
Photothermal stiffness softening
Polyetherurethane urea
Polyurethane elastomer actuator
Polyurethanes
Untethered bionic fingers
Urea

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 19.04.2024

Date Revised 26.04.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1021/acsami.4c00486

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM370707834