Open AccessMultistimuli‐Responsive Insect‐Scale Soft Robotics Based on Anisotropic Super‐Aligned VO 2 Nanowire/Carbon Nanotube Bimorph Actuators
Author(s) -
Chen Pengcheng,
Shi Run,
Shen Nan,
Zhang Zhuoqiong,
Liang Yuxing,
Li Tianran,
Wang Jingwei,
Kong Dejun,
Gan Yichen,
Amini Abbas,
Wang Ning,
Cheng Chun
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advanced intelligent systems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2640-4567
DOI - 10.1002/aisy.202000051
Subject(s) - bimorph , materials science , carbon nanotube , actuator , soft robotics , nanotechnology , robot , nanowire , robotics , nanoscopic scale , mechanical engineering , artificial intelligence , computer science , engineering
The emerging soft robots have attracted increasing interests and gotten rapidly developed, but it is still challenging to substantially promote their response speed and work density. In addition, the wireless way to conveniently trigger the devices, especially for the centimeter‐scale ones, is highly desired. Herein, the multistimuli‐responsive insect‐scale soft robotics is reported based on a super‐aligned VO 2 nanowire arrays (NAs)/carbon nanotube (CNT) bimorph film, comprehensively addressing aforementioned problems. The as‐prepared VO 2 NA/CNT bimorph shows improved actuation performance, anisotropic behavior, rapid response to various stimuli (heat, light, and electricity), and multiple movement modes (bending and torsion). Consequently, diverse untethered, insect‐scale soft robots, serving as biomimetic crawler, lifter, gripper, wing of flying robots, torsional robot, and so on are successfully demonstrated. The findings provide an effective strategy to develop high‐performance macroscopic mechanical devices by assembling functional nanostructures.