I'm pleased to announce that a new publication of mine has been published. The work is "Programmable 3D Shape Changes in Liquid Crystal Polymer Networks of Uniaxial Orientation", a great study I co-authored with Dr. Yu Li and Dr. Hamed Shahsavan. Our article can be found through the following link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adfm.201802809

In this work, the two paths of research in the literature of liquid crystal (LC) and shape memory polymers (SMP) are brought together, resulting in a shape changing polymer that does not need the difficult and costly domain orientation during synthesis that other LC systems require. Instead, this material can be simple solvent cast in a standard mould, then programmed through thermal and mechanical means to obtain the desired actuation, opening new opportunities for manufacturing complex parts from these exciting materials!