Actuators articles from across Nature Portfolio

Robotic applications in complex environments require high-frequency and versatile oscillators. Here, the authors present a pneumatic oscillator that integrates hybrid soft, elastic, and rigid structures. It achieves a maximum frequency of 51 Hz, enabling fast, pre-programmable, and tunable motion patterns.

Soft pumps have applications across various fields but are constrained by their dependence on external power sources. Here, the authors present a battery-free electrohydrodynamic soft pump that utilizes a triboelectric nanogenerator to harvest ambient energy, serving as the driving source for dielectric fluid flow.

Soft actuators mimic the adaptability of biological muscles but lack multifunctionality. This work introduces electric actuation with rapid stiffness and damping modulation, offering multifunctionality and improved dynamic responses for robotics and wearable applications.

We find that if the thickness of a polycrystalline piezoceramic is reduced such that a large fraction of the grains are in the triaxial–biaxal crossover regime, the longitudinal strain is enhanced and the piezoceramic bends.

Large stroke, long lifespan and durability are challenging in electrostatic in-plane micro actuators. Here, the authors exploit the structural superlubric sliding interfaces of a micro-scale graphite flake and the silicon dioxide track to achieve this goal.

Non-classical electrostriction in fluorites arises from defect-induced polarization and lattice distortions. This study shows that mismatch strain in Gd-doped CeO₂ thin films fine-tunes electromechanical responses, achieving high electrostriction above 10−¹⁵ m²V^−2.

An article in Nature Materials reports the fabrication of microscopic metasheet robots that can be electronically controlled to achieve a range of shapes and a locomotion gait.

The synergy between the field-induced antiferroelectric to ferroelectric phase transition and substrate constraints results in enhanced electromechanical responses.

Integrating electrochemically actuated soft robotics with ultra-flexible microelectrodes enables reversible and gentle wrapping around nerves for high-quality recordings.

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.