Projects

As part of the Excellence Cluster livMatS, the Gisela and Erwin Sick Chair of Micro-optics will contribute to the development of completely autonomous light-actuated liquid-crystal elastomer (LCE) actuators. Based on many years of experience using these materials for the realization of tunable optical components, we will now develop means to make them autonomous. In close collaboration with chemistry researchers working in livMatS and the LCE optics team in the Micro-optics lab, we will now incorporate light-sensitive LCE materials into actuators which respond to light, deforming without external energy input. Using fabrication techniques we are continuing to develop, the challenge will be to demonstrate fully autonomous actuation of an optical component, such as an iris.