Liquid Crystal Polymers as Intrinsically Magnetic and Programmable Soft Materials for Microrobotics
Alexandra Gruzdenko, Ignacio Becerra Osorio, Max de Sain, Albert P H J Schenning, Jaap M J den Toonder, Michael G Debije · 2026
Read Liquid Crystal Polymers as Intrinsically Magnetic and Programmable Soft Materials for Microrobotics by Alexandra Gruzdenko, Ignacio Becerra Osorio, Max de Sain, Albert P H J Schenning, Jaap M J den Toonder, Michael G Debije (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13410452.txt.
Description
Alexandra Gruzdenko and co-workers show in 2026 that liquid crystal polymers can move under magnets without any added magnetic filler. Tiny robots for medicine usually need composite mixes, which complicates making them. A single soft material that answers to a magnet would simplify design.
Flat microdisks of the polymer turned in a rotating magnetic field, driven by the material's own uneven magnetic response. They kept pace with the field up to a step-out rate near that of swimming microbes, using modest field strengths. Light-based patterning set each disk's inner alignment, which tuned how it sat in the field and when it slipped. Shape-changing tricks known for these polymers could later add gripping or crawling.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Alexandra Gruzdenko, Ignacio Becerra Osorio, Max de Sain, Albert P H J Schenning, Jaap M J den Toonder, Michael G Debije |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 49999 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |