Bistable Polymer Actuators: Bioinspired Electrically Activated Soft Bistable Actuators (Adv. Funct. Mater. 35/2018)

Abstract

By combining prestressing with a laminating strategy, Tushar K. Ghosh and co-workers introduce a tunable bistability in a bioinspired dielectric elastomer (DE) based actuator. As they report in article number 1802999, a reversible phase transition is facilitated by the electromechanical response of the DE, obviating the continuous application of an electric field. Potential applications include smart textiles, soft robotics, and biomedicine.