Novel Photo-sensitive Materials for Microengineering and Energy Harvesting

According to the European parliament, Research Europe's journey toward tech- nological sovereignty should cover Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) which include Advanced Materials. The new active materials, that are presented here- after and that have been supported by the UE R&D funded PULSE-COM project, are photomobile polymers. These active materials are characterized by their ability to generate significant strokes under light excitation, which allows the development of new actuation devices. The recent progress made in the manufacturing of new photomobile films offers innovative solutions for light- induced motion actuators and devices. Indeed, such films can be assimilated as transducers thanks to their ability to convert light into displacement. By adjusting the incident light parameters (wavelength, exposure time . . .) the photomobile films' actuation can be controlled to answer many applications requesting high displacements and low forces. In these regards, the behavior of the photomobile films was characterized prior to their integration in more complex devices. Then, several proof-of-concepts of these devices were manufactured to try to bring new functionalities to the market such as light- driven optical switch, optical micro-valve, and deflector. Applications in the harvesting field have also been preliminarily explored and discussed.