Responsive soft materials capable of exhibiting various three-dimensional (3D) shapes under the same stimulus are desirable for promising applications in 4D printing, soft robots, bioelectronics. Here, we report a laser rewritable magnetic composite film, whose responsive shape-morphing behaviors induced by a magnetic field can be digitally and repeatedly reprogrammed by a facile method of direct laser writing. Once the phase change polymer temporarily melts by transient laser heating, the orientation of the magnetic particles can be re-aligned upon change of a programming magnetic field. By the digital laser writing on selective areas, magnetic anisotropies can be encoded in the composite film and then reprogrammed by repeating the same procedure, thus leading to multimodal 3D shaping under the same actuation magnetic field. This type of polymer composite was demonstrated for applications in electronics and magnetic soft micro robots.

Reconfigurable 3D shape programming in a laser rewritable magnetic polymer composite

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.