Berkeley Lab Researchers Make a Powerful New Microscale
Torsional Muscle/Motor from Vanadium Dioxide
Vanadium dioxide is poised to join the pantheon of
superstars in the materials world. Already prized for its extraordinary ability
to change size, shape and physical identity, vanadium dioxide can now add
muscle power to its attributes. A team of researchers with the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has
demonstrated a micro-sized robotic torsional muscle/motor made from vanadium
dioxide that for its size is a thousand times more powerful than a human
muscle, able to catapult objects 50 times heavier than itself over a distance
five times its length within 60 milliseconds –
faster than the blink of an eye.