New photoresponsive hydrogels pave the way for soft robotics and information storage! Discover how we successfully used microindentation to characterize these innovative materials and their applications in soft robotics and digital information storage.
This work in collaboration with Prof. Mark Workentin (Western University, Canada) and Dr. Sebastien Rochat (University of Bristol, UK) was funded by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, NSERC (RGPIN-03859), the University of Bristol EPSRC Industrial and International Leverage Fund (EP/T517872/1), the EPSRC New Investigator Award (EP/T01508X/1), the European Union ERC (PROTOMAT, 101039578), and the project PRIN PNRR 3D-L-INKED (P2022BLNCS – financed by European Union Next Generation EU).
In the scientific article published in Advanced Functional Materials we presented two new photosensitive and thermosensitive hydrogels: a photo-stiffening hydrogel and a photo-softening hydrogel. The first hydrogel exploited a light-promoted alkyne-azide cycloaddition (hvSPAAC) to crosslink and reinforce the material. The second hydrogel instead used a PEG-based o-nitrobenzyl (o-NB)-functionalized crosslinker and a photoinduced decrosslinking reaction to soften the material. Microindentation was used to characterize and optimize the viscoelastic properties of both hydrogels. By combining these two new hydrogel systems, it was possible to develop a soft actuator whose complex bending properties could be activated with UV light. We then demonstrated that both hydrogel systems could be used to store digital information in the form patterns of mechanical properties. This work opens the door to the development of new soft materials with spatio-temporal patterns of mechanical properties, with applications in soft robotics, digital information storage, tissue engineering, and biotechnology.
Link to the article.
The Gobbo Group 