Alignment engineering in liquid crystalline elastomers: Free-form microstructures with multiple functionalities

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4915268
• Publication Date: 2015-03-16T17:09:20Z
• Authors: Hao Zeng; Piotr Wasylczyk; Giacomo Cerretti; Daniele Martella; Camilla Parmeggiani; Diederik S. Wiersma
• Keywords: Realization (probability); Micrometer

We report a method to fabricate polymer microstructures with local control over the molecular orientation. Alignment is achieved on level in structure of arbitrary form that can be from 1 100 μm size, by fixing boundary conditions micro-grating patterns. The makes use two-photon polymerization (Direct Laser Writing) and demonstrated specifically liquid-crystalline elastomers. This concept allows for realization free-form polymeric structures multiple functionalities which are not possible realize existing techniques locally controlled light micrometer scale.