ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2020
Bioinspired underwater locomotion of light-driven liquid crystal gels.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 92 papers.
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Who cites it
92 citing papers in PubMed.
- Habitat-Specific Design Strategies for Untethered Soft Robots.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Reducing Nematic-Isotropic Transition Temperature Improves Phototropic Actuation in Printable Liquid Crystal Elastomers.Chemistry of materials : a publication of the American Chemical Society · 2026Article
- "Biodegradable caterpillar inspired soft robotic systems for targeted therapeutic delivery with intelligentRSC advances · 2026Review
- Near-Infrared Light-Driven Microgrooved UCNPs/Azobenzene-LCE Actuators and Substrates for Cardiomyoblast Alignment.ACS applied materials & interfaces · 2026Article
- Reading, decrypting, and actuating with light in soft-robotic materials.Light, science & applications · 2026Article
- A Versatile-Designable Framework for Active and Programmable Shape-Morphing Soft Matter Systems: From Inverse Design to Closed-Loop Control.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Diffusion-guided 4D microprinting of soft microactuators.Nature communications · 2026Article
- All-in-one optically interactive soft robots with embedded liquid crystal holography.Light, science & applications · 2026Article
- Photochemical Fuel Carrier Molecules for Robotic Embodied Energy.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Porous Hybrid Soft Actuators From Liquid Crystal Networks and Lyotropic Chromonic Liquid Crystal Templated Hydrogels.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Light-driven micro/nanobots.Nanophotonics (Berlin, Germany) · 2025Review
- Structural, electronic, NLO, UV-Vis, and vibrational studies of Schiff base liquid crystals TBnA (n = 4-8) via DFT/TD-DFT with alkyl-chain modulation.Journal of molecular modeling · 2025Article
- Stiffening Liquid Crystal Elastomers with Liquid Crystal Inclusions.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2025Article
- Multimodal Field-Driven Actuation in Bioinspired Robots: An Emerging Taxonomy and Roadmap Towards Hybrid Intelligence.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Light-gated redox switching and actuation in polymer hydrogels.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Air plastron-enabled heat management for enhanced photothermal actuation in underwater soft robots.Science advances · 2025Article
- Bio-inspired multimodal soft actuator with environmental self-adaptation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Shape Changes of Liquid Crystal Elastomers Swollen by Low Molecular Weight Liquid Crystal Drops.Macromolecular rapid communications · 2025Article
- Muscle-inspired elasto-electromagnetic mechanism in autonomous insect robots.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Technology Roadmap of Micro/Nanorobots.ACS nano · 2025Review
32 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Soft-bodied aquatic invertebrates, such as sea slugs and snails, are capable of diverse locomotion modes under water. Recapitulation of such multimodal aquatic locomotion in small-scale soft robots is challenging, due to difficulties in precise spatiotemporal control of deformations and inefficient underwater actuation of existing stimuli-responsive materials. Solving this challenge and devising efficient untethered manipulation of soft stimuli-responsive materials in the aquatic environment would significantly broaden their application potential in biomedical devices. We mimic locomotion modes common to sea invertebrates using monolithic liquid crystal gels (LCGs) with inherent light responsiveness and molecular anisotropy. We elicit diverse underwater locomotion modes, such as crawling, walking, jumping, and swimming, by local deformations induced by selective spatiotemporal light illumination. Our results underpin the pivotal role of the physicomechanical properties of LCGs in the realization of diverse modes of light-driven robotic underwater locomotion. We envisage that our results will introduce a toolbox for designing efficient untethered soft robots for fluidic environments.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.