Thermally Driven Photonic Actuator Based on Silica Opal Photonic Crystal with Liquid Crystal Elastomer

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Huihui Xing ; Jun Li ; Yang Shi ; Jinbao Guo ; Jie Wei
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：April 13, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：8
• 期：14
• 页码：9440-9445
• 全文大小：391K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

We have developed a novel thermoresponsive photonic actuator based on three-dimensional SiO₂ opal photonic crystals (PCs) together with liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). In the process of fabrication of such a photonic actuator, the LCE precursor is infiltrated into the SiO₂ opal PC followed by UV light-induced photopolymerization, thereby forming the SiO₂ opal PC/LCE composite film with a bilayer structure. We find that this bilayer composite film simultaneously exhibits actuation behavior as well as the photonic band gap (PBG) response to external temperature variation. When the SiO₂ opal PC/LCE composite film is heated, it exhibits a considerable bending deformation, and its PBG shifts to a shorter wavelength at the same time. In addition, this actuation is quite fast, reversible, and highly repeatable. The thermoresponsive behavior of the SiO₂ opal PC/LCE composite films mainly derives from the thermal-driven change of nematic order of the LCE layer which leads to the asymmetric shrinkage/expansion of the bilayer structure. These results will be of interest in designing optical actuator systems for environment-temperature detection.