electromechanical instability

A highly deformable capacitor made of a soft dielectric and two conformal

electrodes can switch between two states discontinuously, by a first-order transition, as the total

charge varies gradually. When the total charge is small, it spreads evenly over the area of the

capacitor, and the capacitor deforms homogeneously. When the total charge is large, it localizes in

a small region of the capacitor, and this region thins down preferentially. The capacitor will

<http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045782513000790&gt;

Recently accepted for publication in Soft Matter:

(http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2013/SM/C2SM27375F)

(http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c2sm27375f)

Snap-through actuation of thick-wall electroactive balloons

Stephan Rudykh ^(a), (c), Kaushik Bhattacharya  ^(c) and Gal deBotton ^(a), (b)

^(a) Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ben-Gurion University, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel

Electro-creasing instability in deformed polymers: experiment and theory

Qiming Wang, Mukarram Tahir, Lin Zhang, and Xuanhe Zhao*

Soft Matter, In Press 

Creasing to cratering instability in polymers under ultrahigh electric fields

Qiming Wang, Lin Zhang, and Xuanhe Zhao*

Physical Review Letters, In press

NONEQUILIBRIUM THERMODYNAMICS OF DIELECTRIC ELASTOMERS

Xuanhe Zhao, Soo Jin Adrian Koh, Zhigang Suo

Theory of dielectric elastomers capable of giant deformation of actuation

Xuanhe Zhao, Zhigang Suo

Physical Review Letters, 104, 178302 (2010)