Place Holder 2Our group has worked on developing photo-crosslinkable copolymers as a flexible platform for the fabrication of actuating micro-scale devices. Specifically, we make use of materials containing pendent benzophenone units, which give rise to efficient crosslinking with UV light for appropriate copolymer chemistries. For thin sheets of stimuli-responsive polymers, this provides a route to reversibly generate patterns of swelling, yielding buckling into three-dimensional shapes of prescribed Gaussian curvature. The approach also allows for patterning of multi-layer devices, which opens additional opportunities in controlling shape, as well as optical properties, of micro-scale polymer objects.

Photo-crosslinkable polymers for responsive gel sheets and multilayers

246th National Meeting (2013)

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