Unusual stretching-twisting of liquid crystal elastomer bilayers
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), as a unique class of smart soft materials combining the properties of liquid crystals and hyperelasticity, are capable of rapid, anisotropic, and reversible deformations in response to mechanical, thermal or optical stimuli. Here, we report a hitherto unknown stretching-induced twisting behavior of LCE bilayer strips. Under uniaxial stretching, we reveal that due to the spontaneous mismatch strain arising from interlayer anisotropy, the bilayer strips exhibit notable twisting deformations.