Pub Date : 2024-02-22DOI: 10.1557/s43577-024-00663-3
Beomjune Shin, Sohyun Jung, Munkyeong Choi, Keunhwan Park, Ho-Young Kim
Unlike animals, plants lack motion-generating systems such as a central nervous system or muscles, but they have successfully developed mechanisms to sense and respond to environmental changes, ensuring their survival. Most of their movements rely on the movement of water into and out of their cells or tissues, which are intrinsically soft and porous. Understanding and harnessing these natural processes can lead to the development of environmentally friendly and biocompatible soft actuator systems. This article explains the strategies employed by plants to generate movement through water transportation, categorizing them into osmosis-driven and hygroscopic swelling-driven mechanisms. Additionally, we discuss the latest trends in soft actuators that replicate plant water-utilizing movements, suggest directions for further development, and provide a review of practical applications.
{"title":"Plant-inspired soft actuators powered by water","authors":"Beomjune Shin, Sohyun Jung, Munkyeong Choi, Keunhwan Park, Ho-Young Kim","doi":"10.1557/s43577-024-00663-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-024-00663-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Unlike animals, plants lack motion-generating systems such as a central nervous system or muscles, but they have successfully developed mechanisms to sense and respond to environmental changes, ensuring their survival. Most of their movements rely on the movement of water into and out of their cells or tissues, which are intrinsically soft and porous. Understanding and harnessing these natural processes can lead to the development of environmentally friendly and biocompatible soft actuator systems. This article explains the strategies employed by plants to generate movement through water transportation, categorizing them into osmosis-driven and hygroscopic swelling-driven mechanisms. Additionally, we discuss the latest trends in soft actuators that replicate plant water-utilizing movements, suggest directions for further development, and provide a review of practical applications.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Graphical abstract</h3>","PeriodicalId":18828,"journal":{"name":"Mrs Bulletin","volume":"178 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139945933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-21DOI: 10.1557/s43577-024-00679-9
{"title":"50 years of materials research","authors":"","doi":"10.1557/s43577-024-00679-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-024-00679-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":18828,"journal":{"name":"Mrs Bulletin","volume":"95 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139917822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-21DOI: 10.1557/s43577-024-00665-1
Michael F. Reynolds, Marc Z. Miskin
Abstract
Electronically controllable actuators have shrunk to remarkably small dimensions, thanks to recent advances in materials science. Currently, multiple classes of actuators can operate at the micron scale, be patterned using lithographic techniques, and be driven by complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible voltages, enabling new technologies, including digitally controlled micro-cilia, cell-sized origami structures, and autonomous microrobots controlled by onboard semiconductor electronics. This field is poised to grow, as many of these actuator technologies are the firsts of their kind and much of the underlying design space remains unexplored. To help map the current state of the art and set goals for the future, here, we overview existing work and examine how key figures of merit for actuation at the microscale, including force output, response time, power consumption, efficiency, and durability are fundamentally intertwined. In doing so, we find performance limits and tradeoffs for different classes of microactuators based on the coupling mechanism between electrical energy, chemical energy, and mechanical work. These limits both point to future goals for actuator development and signal promising applications for these actuators in sophisticated electronically integrated microrobotic systems.