Nat. Commun.: Bioinspired rotary flight of light-driven composite films

Title：

Bioinspired rotary flight of light-driven composite films

Authors：

Dan Wang^1,2#, Zhaomin Chen^1#, Mingtong Li^3#, Zhen Hou¹, Changsong Zhan¹, Qijun Zheng⁴, Dalei Wang¹, Xin Wang¹, Mengjiao Cheng², Wenqi Hu³, Bin Dong¹*, Feng Shi²*&Metin Sitti^3,5,6*

Institutions：

¹Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials & Joint International Research Laboratory of Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215123, China.

²State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing Laboratory of Biomedical Materials & Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China.

³Physical Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.

⁴Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia.

⁵Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.

⁶School of Medicine and College of Engineering, Koç University, 34450 Istanbul, Turkey.

Abstract：

Light-driven actuators have great potential in different types of applications. However, it is still challenging to apply them in flying devices owing to their slow response, small deflection and force output and low frequency response. Herein, inspired by the structure of vine maple seeds, we report a helicopter-like rotary flying photoactuator (in response to 0.6 W/cm2 near-infrared (NIR)light) with ultrafast rotation (~7200 revolutions per minute) and rapid response (~650 ms). This photoactuator is operated based on a fundamentally different mechanism that depends on the synergistic interactions between the photothermal graphene and the hygroscopic agar/silk fibroin components, the subsequent aerodynamically favorable airscrew formation, the jet propulsion, and the aerodynamics-based flying. The soft helicopter-like photoactuator exhibits controlled flight and steering behaviors, making it promising for applications in soft robotics and other miniature devices.

IF：

17.694

Link：

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40827-4