Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
Nano Lett. 2011 Aug 10;11(8):3239-44. doi: 10.1021/nl201503e. Epub 2011 Jul 12.
A simple approach is described to fabricate reversible, thermally- and optically responsive actuators utilizing composites of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) loaded with single-walled carbon nanotubes. With nanotube loading at concentrations of 0.75 mg/mL, we demonstrate up to 5 times enhancement to the thermal response time of the nanotube-pNIPAM hydrogel actuators caused by the enhanced mass transport of water molecules. Additionally, we demonstrate the ability to obtain ultrafast near-infrared optical response in nanotube-pNIPAM hydrogels under laser excitation enabled by the strong absorption properties of nanotubes. The work opens the framework to design complex and programmable self-folding materials, such as cubes and flowers, with advanced built-in features, including tunable response time as determined by the nanotube loading.
一种简单的方法被描述为利用负载单壁碳纳米管的聚（N-异丙基丙烯酰胺）（pNIPAM）复合材料来制造可逆的、热响应和光响应致动器。在纳米管浓度为 0.75 毫克/毫升的情况下，我们证明了由于水分子的增强质量传输，纳米管-pNIPAM 水凝胶致动器的热响应时间提高了 5 倍。此外，我们证明了在激光激发下，纳米管-pNIPAM 水凝胶具有超快的近红外光响应能力，这得益于纳米管的强吸收特性。这项工作为设计具有复杂和可编程的自折叠材料（如立方体和花朵）提供了框架，这些材料具有内置的先进功能，包括通过纳米管负载来调节响应时间。
