Source: Tampere UniversityA team of researchers from Tampere University in Finland have devised a new technique for moving plastic using light.

Without being preprogrammed to move, soft plastic actuators, composed of fabricated temperature responsive hydrogel surrounding plasmonic gold nanoparticles and merocyanine-based photoacid, move when light is shone on the material.

According to researchers, the plastic “walks” when light is shone on it at recurring intervals, enabling it to travel approximately 1 mm a second.

The team of researchers believes that the material will have implications for the development of soft robotics as well as for biomedical applications, and their findings appear in the journal Matter.

Enabling materials to move will likely pave the way for more sophisticated technology, particularly enabling robots of doing even more. Such advances have led to the development of robots that move like leeches, climbing up and down vertical walls with the potential to be used in search and rescue missions, for instance. Meanwhile, researchers from the University of California have developed a robot that scurries like a cockroach, also with the potential to assist with future search and rescue missions.

To see Tampere University researchers make the plastic walk, watch the accompanying video that appears courtesy of Tampere University.