Camouflage and display for soft machines.
Synthetic systems cannot easily mimic the color-changing abilities of animals such as cephalopods. Soft machines--machines fabricated from soft polymers and flexible reinforcing sheets--are rapidly increasing in functionality. This manuscript describes simple microfluidic networks that can change the color, contrast, pattern, apparent shape, luminescence, and surface temperature of soft machines for camouflage and display. The color of these microfluidic networks can be changed simultaneously in the visible and infrared--a capability that organisms do not have. These strategies begin to imitate the functions, although not the anatomies, of color-changing animals.
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Stephen A
SA
Morin
Robert F
RF
Shepherd
Sen Wai
SW
Kwok
Adam A
AA
Stokes
Alex
A
Nemiroski
George M
GM
Whitesides
D000818:Animals; D049830:Cephalopoda / Q000737:chemistry; D003116:Color; D049449:Luminescence; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*; D018716:Molecular Mimicry; D010858:Pigmentation