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Advanced Materials
Article . 2025 . Peer-reviewed
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Stiffening Liquid Crystal Elastomers with Liquid Crystal Inclusions

Authors: Sahad Vasanji; Matthew Gene Scarfo; Arwa Alyami; Tizazu H. Mekonnen; Parsin Hajireza; Mohand O. Saed; Antal Jákli; +1 Authors

Stiffening Liquid Crystal Elastomers with Liquid Crystal Inclusions

Abstract

AbstractLiquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are promising building blocks for soft robots, given their large, programmable, reversible, and stimuli‐responsive shape change. Enhancing LCEs’ stiffness and toughness has been a longstanding desire previously explored by reinforcing them with fillers, crystalline microdomains, and interpenetrating polymer networks. While promising, these methods adversely affect molecular order and thermal strain. Here, a significant enhancement of the stiffness of LCEs is reported by loading them with low molecular weight liquid crystals (LMWLCs) without sacrificing thermal strain and molecular order. While pristine LCEs rapidly transition to a soft elastic plateau when strained from poly‐ to monodomain, LC‐loaded samples (LC‐LCEs) first experience a pronounced linear elasticity, followed by a soft elastic plateau at higher stresses. Further thermomechanical and X‐ray analysis confirm the emergence of an additional mesophase in polydomain LC‐LCEs, which evolves to short‐range smectic (cybotactic) during the poly‐ to monodomain transition. Monodomain LC‐LCEs show between 6.5‐ and 9.0‐fold stiffness enhancement with improved molecular order and thermal strain. Their work densities are more than double that of pristine LCEs, with active thermal stroke of up to 25% under loads of over 2000 times their weight. Such remarkable behaviors are attributed to the interplay between post‐polymerization phase separation of LCs and their strain‐enhanced smectic ordering. The results suggest that LMWLC inclusion can be a simple yet robust method to significantly improve the mechanical properties of LCEs.

Keywords

polymerization‐induced phase separation, liquid crystal elastomers, induced smectic, soft actuators, cybotactic

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citations
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
2
Top 10%
Average
Average
Green
hybrid