Photo-Responsive Liquid Crystal Elastomer Coils Inspired by Tropism Movements of Plants

Plant tendrils exhibit intriguing tropism motions like bending, twisting, and coiling. Herein, we report the application of a liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) to make a light-sensitive and biomimetic coil to replicate behaviors of plant tendrils. The LCE coil consists of diacrylate azobenzene, diacrylate mesogens, and thiol-based spacers. These components are first mixed to form a highly viscous prepolymer solution through a thiol-acrylate Michael addition reaction. Subsequently, an extrusion–rolling process is developed to draw the viscous solution into a coil, which is mechanically stretched in a single direction to align mesogens in the LCE. Finally, the coil is photopolymerized under UV light to form an LCE coil with a diameter of 375 µm. The LCE coil possesses good rigidity and flexibility and shows movement upon light exposure. For example, the LCE coil shows a reversible bending up to 120° to 365 nm UV and 30% contraction to 455 nm visible light, respectively, due to trans-cis photoisomerization of azobenzene derivatives. When the coil is irradiated with UV light with an intensity up to 10 mW cm−2, it can twist and coil up. It can also wrap around the UV light tube in 6 s, similar to a plant tendril. This type of light-responsive coil has great potential in making biomimetic plants or soft robotics.