Issue 13, 2022

Deformable, sensible, and reconfigurable microgels with structural color: potential as camouflage soft microrobots

Abstract

Camouflage soft microrobots that undergo controlled shape and optical changes in response to a range of stimuli are of interest in microscale soft robotic and biomedical devices. The materials that such microbots require must possess excellent mechanical properties and special optical properties. In this paper, a calibrated droplet was constructed by droplet microfluidics, which served as a stimuli-responsive, semi-confined space to process block copolymer (BCP) self-assembly. This unique confined space allows block copolymers to respond to stimuli (pH, temperature, and magnetic energy), generating a series of topologically heterogeneous microgels (THGMs) with a soft nature. This soft property endows the THGMs with superior deformability, sensitivity and reconfigurability: three essential elements of soft microrobots. Simultaneously, the topological microstructures endow the THGMs with vivid iridescence and a broad color appearance, which is derived from the combined grating dispersion and film interference. Such synergistic color-changing, shape-morphing and stimuli-sensing capabilities have been integrated into a microscale entity for the first time, yielding a multifunctional synergy towards more powerful soft robotics (e.g. camouflaged robots). This work has made color-changeable soft machines accessible, and is expected to hold wide potential application in biomimetic soft robotics, biological sensors, and camouflage.

Graphical abstract: Deformable, sensible, and reconfigurable microgels with structural color: potential as camouflage soft microrobots

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
11 জানু. 2022
Accepted
23 ফেব্রু. 2022
First published
26 ফেব্রু. 2022

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022,10, 5070-5078

Deformable, sensible, and reconfigurable microgels with structural color: potential as camouflage soft microrobots

Y. Liu, X. Wang, F. Feng, Q. Li, H. Xiao and L. Yao, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022, 10, 5070 DOI: 10.1039/D2TC00142J

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements