Light-Driven Dynamic Adhesion on Photosensitized Nematic Liquid Crystalline Elastomers

In liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), the internal mechanical loss increases around the nematic–isotropic phase transition and remains high all through the nematic phase, originating from the internal orientational relaxation related to the so-called “soft elasticity”. Because the viscoelastic dissipation of the materials affects their adhesion properties, the nematic–isotropic phase transition can cause dramatic changes in the adhesion strength. Although the phase transitions can generally be induced by heat, here, we demonstrate the light-driven transition in dynamic adhesion in dye-doped nematic LCE. The special dye is chosen to efficiently generate local heat on light absorption. The adhesion strength is lowered with fine tunability depending on the light power, which governs the effective local temperature and through that the viscoelastic damping of the system. We demonstrate the light-assisted dynamic control of adhesion in a 90°-peel test and in pick-and-release of objects, which may lead to the development of stimuli-responsive adhesive systems with fine spatio-temporal controls.