Design of Smart Polymer Printer via Regulating Chain reaction over the Liquid Crystals
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초록
내용
Self-healing materials responding to the external stimuli are interesting due to their recovery ability. Conventional methods to provide self-healing properties require specially designed materials, which limit diverse applications. To overcome limitations, here we show a simple and versatile strategy via liquid crystals (LCs) system which trigger the escape of droplets that are elastically levitating within the LCs. We designed a smart system that sense a variety of stimuli and then cause polymerization in surrounding environment. Specifically, the polymer printer consists of two wells of LCs that trapped the droplets containing monomer and cross-linker, respectively. In response to the stimuli, the electric double layer triggers the release of monomers from the first well. The released monomer also acted as a trigger for the second well, which attracts the cross-linker out to make gelation. This research has been supported by the POSCO Science Fellowship of POSCO TJ Park Foundation.