Surface deformation of nematic elastomers under striped illumination.
Nematic elastomers containing azobenzene chromophores are activated upon photoabsorption. We study the surface deformation of such elastomers under striped illumination. For an arbitrary orientation of the nematic axis, we obtain an analytical solution to the problem via a phenomenological continuum model. Numerical computations indicate that the profile of the deformed surface depends not only on the stripe width but also on the orientation of the nematic axis. The result may provide a mechanism to manipulate the surface topography of elastomers.
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CAS Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and Design of Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. lhhe@ustc.edu.cn