Neri Fuochi

Exploiting photopolymerization to modulate liquid crystalline networks actuation Liquid Crystalline Networks (LCNs) are widely investigated to develop actuators, from soft robots to artificial muscles. Indeed, they can produce forces and movements in response to a plethora of external stimuli, showing kinetics up to the milliseconds time-scale. One of the most explored preparation techniques involve the photopolymerization of an aligned layer of reactive mesogens.