A Light Driven Artificial Goldfish

Liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs) undergo large and rapid shape changes when illuminated by light. We have immersed an azo-dye doped LCE in a fluid and alternately illuminate either side of the LCE with light to create an artificial goldfish of sorts. These light induced deformations allow the LCE to interact with a fluid environment in novel ways. We use a fluid flow visualization technique to attempt to understand the dynamics of these interactions. We describe our experimental setup, the LCE drive scheme used, and our observations of induced motion in both the LCE sample and the surrounding fluid.