Biomimetics
Botanical movements
Plants can move or deform by absorbing moisture from the atmosphere. Due to the anisotropic microstructures of plants, they make unique deformation modes. We biologically and mechanically investigate various botanical movements. We provide a novel actuation system based on fundamentals.
Park, et al. Soft Matter in Plants
(book chapter), 2022
Tip-growth
Soft systems that respond to external stimuli, such as heat, magnetic field, and light, find applications in a range of fields including soft robotics, energy harvesting, and biomedicine. Inspired by tropic growth schemes of plant cells, we report an artificial multistimuli-responsive tropic tip-growing system based on nonsolvent-induced phase separation of polymer solution, where polymer precipitates as its solvent dissolves into surrounding nonsolvent.
Park, et al. PNAS, 2023