Optical fibre taper-enabled waveguide photoactuators

Photoactuators have attracted significant interest for soft robot and gripper applications, yet most of them rely on free-space illumination, which requires a line-of-site low-loss optical path. While waveguide photoactuators can overcome this limitation, their actuating performances are fundamentally restricted by the nature of standard optical fibres. Herein, we demonstrated miniature photoactuators by embedding optical fibre taper in a polydimethylsiloxane/Au nanorod-graphene oxide photothermal film. The special geometric features of the taper endow the designed photoactuator with microscale active layer thickness, high energy density and optical coupling efficiency. Hence, our photoactuator show large bending angles (>270°), fast response (1.8 s for 180° bending), and low energy consumption (<0.55 mW/°), significantly exceeding the performance of state-of-the-art waveguide photoactuators. As a proof-of-concept study, one-arm and two-arm photoactuator-based soft grippers are demonstrated for capturing/moving small objects, which is challenging for free-space light-driven photoactuators.