title: Thermally Driven Photonic Actuator Based on Silica Opal Photonic Crystal with Liquid Crystal Elastomer.
abstract: We have developed a novel thermoresponsive photonic actuator based on three-dimensional SiO2 opal photonic crystals (PCs) together with liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). In the process of fabrication of such a photonic actuator, the LCE precursor is infiltrated into the SiO2 opal PC followed by UV light-induced photopolymerization, thereby forming the SiO2 opal PC/LCE composite film with a bilayer structure. We find that this bilayer composite film simultaneously exhibits actuation behavior as well as the photonic band gap (PBG) response to external temperature variation. When the SiO2 opal PC/LCE composite film is heated, it exhibits a considerable bending deformation, and its PBG shifts to a shorter wavelength at the same time. In addition, this actuation is quite fast, reversible, and highly repeatable. The thermoresponsive behavior of the SiO2 opal PC/LCE composite films mainly derives from the thermal-driven change of nematic order of the LCE layer which leads to the asymmetric shrinkage/expansion of the bilayer structure. These results will be of interest in designing optical actuator systems for environment-temperature detection.
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.|Beijing Engineering Research Center for the Synthesis and Applications of Waterborne Polymers , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Huihui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.|Beijing Engineering Research Center for the Synthesis and Applications of Waterborne Polymers , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.|Beijing Engineering Research Center for the Synthesis and Applications of Waterborne Polymers , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.|Beijing Engineering Research Center for the Synthesis and Applications of Waterborne Polymers , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jinbao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.|Beijing Engineering Research Center for the Synthesis and Applications of Waterborne Polymers , Beijing 100029, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wei
keywords: bending deformation; liquid crystal elastomer; opal photonic crystal; photonic band gap; thermoresponsive photonic actuator