Photo‐Responsive Bilayer Soft Actuators Synergic Fluorescence and Shape Change Towards Biomimetic Untethered Camouflage Robots

Abstract Soft actuators synergic color and shape change behaviors are highly interesting and have a great potential to enable biomimetic robotic devices. However, it remains a grand challenge to achieve color and shape change behaviors on demand for emulating complicated activities of living creatures adjusting to surrounding environments. Herein, photo‐responsive bilayer actuators synergic fluorescence and shape change behaviors are fabricated based on silica carbon dots (Si‐CDs) and liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs). In the design, Si‐CDs/polydimethylsiloxane composite film acting as a photochromic layer provides tunable fluorescence performance under ultraviolet while graphene/LCE composite film functioning as a photo‐actuation layer affords reversible deformation under near‐infrared. Thanks to stable fluorescence and photo‐actuation behaviors of bilayer soft actuators, desired camouflage, and locomotion features are realized in untethered bio‐inspired soft robots such as artificial flytrap and inchworm‐inspired walkers by morphology engineering and driven manner manipulation. This work offers a toolbox for designing multifunctional photo‐responsive soft actuators and promotes them towards untethered bio‐inspired intelligent robotic devices.