Inorganic Stimuli‐Responsive Nanomembranes for Small‐Scale Actuators and Robots

摘要

The term small‐scale robotics describes a wide variety of miniature robotic systems, ranging from millimeter‐sized devices down to autonomous mobile systems with dimensions measured in nanometers. These systems can perform complex tasks that are impossible for humans to accomplish or at scales that humans cannot reach. In recent years, the rapid advancement of small‐scale robotics has benefited from the progress in synthesis and nanotechnology, providing access to nanomembranes with stimuli‐responsive materials, such as phase transition materials, shape memory alloys, and palladium. These materials are 2D sheets with a thickness ranging from 5 to 500 nm, and they have the ability to change their shape reversibly under extremal stimuli. Together with strain engineering for deterministic assembly, various stimuli‐responsive actuators and robots have been fabricated for medicine, manufacturing, and exploration by endowing them with the combined features of a continuously deformable structure, remote operation, and several degrees of freedom. Herein, the recent achievements in small‐scale actuators and robots based on inorganic stimuli‐responsive nanomembranes are reviewed and their advantages and properties highlighted.