Toward Soft Electro-Mechanical Materials and Devices

Qibing Pei, Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, UCLA

The emergence of devices that combine elasticity with electronic or electromechanical properties offers exciting new opportunities for applications, but brings significant materials challenges. This presentation will describe our findings in the materials effort and device demonstration in developing dielectric elastomers and electrocaloric polymers, as well as integrated functional devices. Large actuation strains have been achieved in dielectric elastomers to reproduce certain muscle functions. Bistable electroactive polymers (BSEP) are capable of large, electrically actuated strains with bistability. Phase-transition of nanocrystalline domains in the BSEP allows the narrowing of the temperature range for better controllability. Electrocaloric (ECE) polymers are relaxor ferroelectrics with large switchable polarization. The corresponding entropy change can be exploit for cooling. A solid state cooling device based on a flexible ECE film and an electrostatic actuation mechanism has been demonstrated that is efficient, compact, and can be made flexible.

About the Speaker

Qibing Pei is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA, specializing in synthetic polymers and composites for electronic, electromechanical, and photonic applications, with 200 peer-reviewed journal publications and 44 issued US patents. His current research activities include synthesis of stretchable electronic materials, nanostructured polymer composites, dielectric elastomers and bistable electroactive polymers for muscle-like actuation, and fabrication of flexible and stretchable electronic devices. He received a B.S. degree from Nanjing University and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science. He was a postdoctoral fellow in Linköping University, Sweden, a senior chemist at UNIAX Corporation (now DuPont Display), Santa Barbara, and a senior research engineer at SRI International, Menlo Park, California. He is a Fellow of SPIE, member of ACS and MRS, Associate Editor of Smart Materials & Structures and Soft Robotics, and Advisory Board Member of Advanced Electronic Materials and Scientific Reports.