Advanced Materials, Vol.21, No.47, 4859-4859, 2009
A Continuous Flow Synthesis of Micrometer-Sized Actuators from Liquid Crystalline Elastomers
We demonstrate the use of a microfluidic setup to prepare monodisperse and spherical beads from a liquid crystalline elastomer. These particles show a strong and reversible shape change into a cigar-like conformation during the transition into the isotropic phase. These propeties are a result of the monodomainic alignment of the mesogens in the flow field of the microfluiclic setup.