Professor Dezhi Wu has made progress in high-performance dielectric electroactive artificial muscles.
Dielectric micro-actuators have become one of the most promising flexible actuators due to their lightweight and low operating voltage. Modulating the electrochemical properties of conductivity and capacitance to achieve efficient ion transport and extended response modes is crucial for soft electro-ionic actuators. However, the rapid fabrication of active electrode materials that can respond to multiple modes is still quite limited. Recently, Professor Dezhi Wu and his team from the Sabin Don Micro-Nano Science and Technology Research Institute at Xiamen University reported the rapid preparation of modified graphene through laser induction, the construction of a core-shell heterogeneous structure coral-like three-dimensional conductive network, and the realization of rapid electron exchange through confinement effects, enabling the actuator to respond at the lowest millivolt level. Based on this, they developed a principled biological scaffold that can promote the induced differentiation of stem cells. The research results, titled "Reinforced Magnetic-Responsive Electro-Ionic Artificial Muscles by 3D Laser-Induced Graphene Nano-Heterostructures," were published online in the international journal Advanced Materials (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202407106).
Figure 1: PCL-based biological scaffold with dual electrical and mechanical stimuli, applicable to the induced differentiation of stem cells. Professor Dezhi Wu and Associate Professor Jianyi Zheng from Xiamen University are the corresponding authors of the paper, and doctoral student Zhenjin Xu is the first author. The research work was supported by the National Key R&D Program, the National Natural Science Foundation, and the Xiamen Science and Technology Plan projects, among others. Professor Dezhi Wu (Sun Daoheng team) has long been committed to research on micro-nano manufacturing and equipment, flexible sensing, and soft robotics. He has developed high-viscosity fluid printing devices, large-area batch electrospinning devices, various flexible pressure field sensors, and intelligent soft robots, publishing numerous academic results in journals such as Adv. Mater., Additive Manufacturing, International Journal of Mechanical Science, and ACS Sensors.
