Volumetric additive manufacturing of shape memory polymers

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are stimuli responsive materials with programmable recovery from a deformed state. SMP behavior is often impacted by manufacturing features like layering that can impart anisotropic responses. Volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM) is an emerging paradigm that can generate complex three-dimensional SMP structures without layers. Herein we report VAM of thiol–ene-based SMP photoresins to produce structures with nearly full shape recovery, including self-standing tripod and actuating three-arm gripper structures.