Shape Morphing of Planar Liquid Crystal Elastomers

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytical solution for shape morphing in planar liquid crystal elastomers, enabling precise control of their deformation and design of complex shapes through nematic director field manipulation.

Contribution

It introduces a closed-form analytical method to determine nematic director fields for shape morphing in planar liquid crystal elastomers, including disclinations and gauge choices.

Findings

Analytical solution for nematic director fields on arbitrary domains.

Inclusion of disclinations in the shape morphing framework.

Design principles for shape programming of liquid crystal elastomers.

Abstract

We consider planar liquid crystal elastomers: two dimensional objects made of anisotropic responsive materials, that upon activation remain flat however change their planar shape. We derive a closed form, analytical solution based on the implicit linearity featured by this subclass of deformations. Our solution provides the nematic director field on an arbitrary domain starting with two initial director curves. We discuss the different gauges choices for this problem, and the inclusion of disclinations in the nematic order. Finally, we propose several applications and useful design principles based on this theoretical framework.