Compliance‐Mediated Topographic Oscillation of Polarized Light Triggered Liquid Crystal Coating

Abstract

Abstract The ability to induce oscillating surface topographies in light‐responsive liquid crystal networks on‐demand by light is interesting for applications in soft robotics, self‐cleaning surfaces, and haptics. However, the common height of these surface features is in the range of tens of nanometer, which limits their applications. Here a photoresponsive liquid crystal network coating with a patterned director motive exhibiting surface features that oscillate dynamically when addressed by light with modulated polarization is reported. By utilizing a compliant intermediate layer, the surface topographies increase with a factor 10, from roughly 70–100 nm to 1 µm. This increase in topography height is accompanied by a superimposed dynamic oscillation with an amplitude of ≈100 nm. These values can be translated to a 16.7% average static strain with 3.3% oscillations with respect to the coating thickness. Moreover, utilizing the complying support increases the maximum rotation speeds with an in‐phase response from 2.5 up to 25° s −1 . However, at this maximized rotation speed the oscillation amplitude decreases to about half of the initial value.