Zixuan Deng – ESR 11

Light robots are soft systems whose mechanical movements are fuelled by light. They provide an attractive platform for remotely controlled soft robotic systems such as grippers, walkers, and swimmers. Among different classes of light-controllable materials, liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) stand out because of their large deformability, efficient light response, and programmability/patterning ability via technologies adapted from the liquid crystal display industry. Recent advances in light robotics include autonomous systems that receive feedback from the environment or undergo locomotion under stationary light fields, and reversibly reconfigurable actuators that are able to adapt different shapes under identical stimulus. Building on these advances, this ESR will focus on LCE systems that act efficiently not only in air, but also under water, a goal especially pertinent to the biomedical field, and materials/surfaces that are sensitive not only to light, but also to humidity.

Planned secondments: TUE (Dirk Broer) to optimize the humidity- and light-sensitive actuators; Lyncee tec (company secondment) to adapt digital holographic microscopy for high-resolution real-time morphological characterisation.

PhD programme – University: Doctoral Programme in Engineering and Natural Sciences – Tampere University