Actuators articles from across Nature Portfolio

The controllability of deformation height in reconfigurable touch displays currently limits their deliverable information. Hwang et al. present a light-triggered morphable tactile display enabling generation of refreshable, height-adjustable, and latchable 3D topologies with varying textures on a thin film surface.

Haughn and colleagues develop gust rejection controllers and overcome challenges of computationally expensive modeling and expansive distributed sensing networks. With only three pressure tap sensors, small fixed wing uncrewed aerial vehicles could extend into more complex urban environments.

Seeking eco-friendly materials with equivalent performance to lead-based piezoelectric materials remains an urgent demand. Here, the authors design potassium–sodium niobate-based lead-free piezoelectric materials with large potential.

Addressing challenges in voice disorders, the authors present a self-powered, wearable sensor-actuator system based on magnetoelasticity. This innovation enables assisted speaking by capturing laryngeal movements and translating them into voice signals, bypassing the vocal folds.

Direct growth of piezoelectric oxides on glass is difficult due to high processing temperatures. Here, the authors demonstrate a flash lamp process for the growth of films on various glasses in a few seconds only. The films have piezoelectric e_33,f of −5 C m⁻² and can be used in haptic devices.

Environmentally adaptive hydrogels have great potential as soft robotics but achieving self-regulated reversal shape deformation in homogenous hydrogels under a constant stimulus is challenging. Here, the authors report responsive hydrogels functionalized with two photoswitchable spiropyrans that exhibit self-regulated transient deformation reversal when subjected to constant illumination.

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) lacks sufficient haptic feedback to the surgeon due to the length and flexibility of surgical tools. This haptic disconnect is exacerbated in robotic-MIS, which utilizes tele-operation to control surgical tools. Tactile sensation in MIS and robotic-MIS can be restored in a safe and conformable manner through soft sensors and soft haptic feedback devices.

An ultrathin haptic interface can selectively activate different cutaneous receptors in the skin, providing rich haptic sensation information in virtual reality.

By forming a heterostructure interface, and by judicious choice of crystallographic orientation, piezoelectrics are developed that show expansion or contraction along all axes on application of an electric field.

Photochromic molecular crystal arrays aligned in the micropores of a polymer membrane show high-performance actuation when stimulated by light. These soft composites might find applications in soft robotic devices.

The output mechanical energy densities of ferroelectric polymers remain orders of magnitude smaller than those of piezoelectric ceramics and crystals, limiting their applications in soft actuators. But polymer composites subject to an electro-thermally driven ferroelectric phase transition under low electric fields are now shown to have giant actuation strains and large energy densities.