Glow‐Worm‐Inspired Fluorescent Self‐Healing Actuators for Soft Robot and Reconfigurable Information Encryption

Abstract

Abstract Fluorescent actuators with light‐emitting and shape‐deformation properties are promising in bionics and soft robotics. However, current fluorescent actuators barely balance actuation performances with fluorescence properties, as they exhibit insufficient brightness, poor color‐purity, low‐stability, and few functional‐integrations, limiting their applications in complex scenarios. Herein, inspired by glow‐worms, a multifunctional fluorescent actuator by combining ultra‐stable perovskite quantum dots with polyurethane and graphene oxide composites is reported, which integrates large deformation, high brightness, high color‐purity, color‐changing function and full‐device self‐healing function together. The actuator shows a large bending curvature of 2.48 cm −1 . It exhibits excellent fluorescence performances, such as quantum yields as high as 58.88% and full‐widths at half‐maximum as narrow as 21 nm. The actuation and fluorescence properties show long‐term stability during more than 1100 cycles of near‐infrared irradiation and 12 h of ultraviolet exposure. Moreover, the actuator is integrated with color‐changing and full‐device self‐healing functions, enabling a synergetic color/shape change and reconfigurable on‐demand fluorescent patterns. Then, a smart gripper and a crawling robot with crawling/rollover motions are demonstrated. Finally, a non‐contact dynamic display of reconfigurable encrypted information driven by light is fabricated to mimic light communications of glow‐worms. This actuator demonstrates unprecedented multifunctionality, opening new avenues for fluorescent soft robotics.