Properties of graphene oxide/liquid crystal elastomer composites

In recent years, graphene oxide/liquid crystal elastomer composites have received a lot of attention from scientists due to their stable and efficient photothermal properties. However, most researchers have focused on their photothermal response behavior and usage scenario, and have not systematically investigated the effects of the strength of external stimuli and the size of the composites themselves on their response performance. In this paper, graphene oxide/liquid crystal elastic composites with different liquid crystal molecular orientations were prepared by spin-coating a layer of graphene oxide on the prepared liquid crystal film with a fixed orientation, which can achieve the dual stimulation response of infrared light and temperature, and the response performance and deformation law were characterized and analyzed. The experimental results show that the graphene oxide/liquid crystal elastomer composite is an infrared-thermal responsive composite, which shows 2 different deformation laws due to different shearing modes. Based on this, the response properties of the composite under different intensity external field stimulation and the effect of different dimensions of the composite itself on the response properties of the composite are investigated. It is found that the response properties of type 1 composites are mainly affected by the width, and the response properties of type 2 composites are mainly affected by the length, which provides a basis for the application of graphene oxide/liquid crystal elastomer composites. Biomimetic photothermal actuators were prepared by this composite, implying great potential in the field of biomimicry.