Xu‐Man Chen

Southeast University, BioElectronics (United States)

Papers

Total Citations

164

H-Index

About

Xu‐Man Chen is a rising leader in the field of intelligent soft robotics and responsive materials, with a research focus on designing bioinspired actuators that convert external stimuli—such as electricity and light—into complex, untethered motion. Chen’s most influential work, the 2020 paper “Liquid Crystal Elastomer Electric Locomotives” (110 citations), introduces a groundbreaking bilayered liquid crystal elastomer/carbon black actuator that moves along a conductive track like a tiny electric train, demonstrating a novel electro-driven cylindrical system with high maneuverability. Building on this, Chen’s 2022 study on a visible and near-infrared light-fueled omnidirectional twist-bend crawling robot (52 citations) achieves unprecedented freedom of action, enabling self-adaptive, untethered locomotion in multiple directions—a significant leap for light-driven robotics. Chen also contributes to supramolecular photonics, co-authoring work on tunable circularly polarized luminescent systems (featured on the cover of ChemPhotoChem in 2022), which shows versatility in controlling emission color and chirality. With a growing citation impact and a knack for merging materials science with robotic design, Chen is shaping the next generation of adaptive, energy-efficient soft machines.