Textures and shapes in nematic elastomers under the action of dopant concentration gradients

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for patterning nematic elastomers by controlling dopant concentration gradients, which influence the nematic director field and induce various shapes through anisotropic deformation.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel approach to patterning nematic elastomers without direct texture inscription, using dopant gradients to control director fields and shape transformations.

Findings

Dopant concentration gradients affect nematic director orientation.

Topological defect modifications occur around dopant sources.

Various shapes are achieved through anisotropic deformation.

Abstract

We explore a novel strategy of patterning nematic elastomers that does not require inscribing the texture directly. It is based on varying the dopant concentration that, beside shifting the phase transition point, affects the nematic director field via coupling between the gradients of concentration and nematic order parameter. Rotation of the director around a point dopant source causes topological modification manifesting itself in a change of the number of defects. A variety of shapes, dependent on the dopant distribution, are obtained by anisotropic deformation following the nematic--isotropic transition.