Recently, a research team led by Pro.Chen Luzhuo from the College of Physics and Energy have made significant progress in the field of intelligent material research. Their paper, Graphene-Based Actuator with Integrated-Sensing Function, was published in Advanced Functional Materials, an international academic journal on material science(ranking top 20% of SCI session 1 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, impact factor 13.325 ) and was chosen as Front Cover Paper for the current issue (Feb 1, 2019),
Conventional actuators can be deformed by external stimuli, but will not provide real-time sensing signal feedbacks on the shape-deformation amplitudes. The only way to detect its deformation is to observe the actuator directly, which limits its application in closed or remote control conditions. To break the limitation and add functionality in conventional actuaors, Prof.Chen and his colleagues proposed a graphene - based actuator with integrated-sensing function, which realizes real-time measurement of the shape-deformation amplitudes of the actuators. The development of this integrated-sensing actuator is expected to open new application fields in soft robotics, artificial muscles, flexible wearable devices, and other integrated multifunctional devices.
(Translated by Huang Lijun Reviewed by Liang Li’e)