Actuation of liquid crystal elastomers reprocessed with carbon nanoparticles

Liquid crystal elastomers are currently of great interest due to their large thermally stimulated changes in shape. Here the authors show that by using an existing network and conducting carbon nanoparticles dispersed in a solvent with high swelling capability, a surface integrated layer can be created. This layer allows the effective resistivity to be reduced from highly insulating to usable values for electrical actuation and withstands large changes in geometrical shape both in contraction and expansion. Utilizing a resistive "Joule" heating effect, the reprocessed system shows a 150% length change and can be cycled beyond 10 kcycles. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.