Nocturnal eye inspired liquid to gas phase change soft actuator with Laser-Induced-Graphene: enhanced environmental light harvesting and photothermal conversion

2025-01-21

AI Summary

Soft robots are often constrained by bulky batteries, tethering cables, or external pneumatic sources, resulting in limited degrees of freedom and slow response. To address this, we present a bioinspired, light-driven soft actuator mimicking the nocturnal animal eye. Our design features a novel bilayer architecture: a transparent silicone elastomer substrate integrated with a laser-induced graphene (LIG) photothermal layer on its surface. This configuration enables highly efficient broadband light absorption and localized photothermal heating, triggering rapid liquid–vapor phase transition and generating large, reversible deformations. Crucially, the actuator operates wirelessly and without external gas supply—directly powered by ambient natural light. It achieves a 54% reduction in response time compared to state-of-the-art light-driven actuators and maintains self-powered operation even under low-illumination conditions. This work establishes a new paradigm for autonomous, high-dexterity, and fast-response soft robotics enabled by intrinsic energy harvesting.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Computer Vision: Low Level & Physics-based Vision
• Machine Learning: Bio-inspired Learning

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Multilingual and cross-lingual Web search
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

Robotic systems' mobility is constrained by power sources and wiring. While pneumatic actuators remain tethered to air supplies, we developed a new actuator utilizing light energy. Inspired by nocturnal animals' eyes, we designed a bilayer soft actuator incorporating Laser-Induced Graphene (LIG) on the inner surface of a silicone layer. This design maintains silicone's transparency and flexibility while achieving 54% faster response time compared to conventional actuators through enhanced photothermal conversion.

Problem

• Robotics
• Actuator Design
• Mobility Enhancement

Innovation

• Laser-Induced Graphene
• Soft Robot
• Photothermal Actuator