title: High-Fidelity Replica Molding of Glassy Liquid Crystalline Polymer Microstructures.
abstract: Liquid crystalline polymers have recently been engineered to exhibit complex macroscopic shape adaptivity, including optically- and thermally driven bending, self-sustaining oscillation, torsional motion, and three-dimensional folding. Miniaturization of these novel materials is of great interest for both fundamental study of processing conditions and for the development of shape-changing microdevices. Here, we present a scalable method for high-fidelity replica molding of glassy liquid crystalline polymer networks (LCNs), by vacuum-assisted replica molding, along with magnetic field-induced control of the molecular alignment. We find that an oxygen-free environment is essential to establish high-fidelity molding with low surface roughness. Identical arrays of homeotropic and polydomain LCN microstructures are fabricated to assess the influence of molecular alignment on the elastic modulus (E = 1.48 GPa compared to E = 0.54 GPa), and side-view imaging is used to quantify the reversible thermal actuation of individual LCN micropillars by high-resolution tracking of edge motion. The methods and results from this study will be synergistic with future advances in liquid crystalline polymer chemistry, and could enable the scalable manufacturing of stimuli-responsive surfaces for applications including microfluidics, tunable optics, and surfaces with switchable wetting and adhesion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
authors.forename: Hangbo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.|Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Inha University , 100 Inha-ro, Nam-gu, Incheon 402-751, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jeong Jae
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Wie
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan , 2350 Hayward Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.
authors.forename: Davor
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Copic
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
authors.forename: C Ryan
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
authors.forename: Alvin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Orbaek White
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
authors.forename: Sanha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.|Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan , 2350 Hayward Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States.
authors.forename: A John
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Hart
mesh_terms: D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D017155:Wettability
keywords: actuation; liquid crystalline polymer; microstructures; replica molding; surfaces