Stretchable and transparent hydrogels as soft conductors for dielectric elastomer actuators

A soft ionic conductor can serve as an artificial nerve in an artificial muscle. A polyacrylamide hydrogel is synthesized containing a hygroscopic salt, lithium chloride. Two layers of the hydrogel are used as ionic conductors to sandwich a dielectric elastomer and fabricate a highly stretchable and transparent actuator. When the two layers of the hydrogels are subject to a voltage, the actuator reduces its thickness and expands. An areal strain of 134% is demonstrated. The voltage‐strain curves are calculated by using a model that accounts for the elastic constraint of the hydrogel and the inhomogeneous deformation of the actuator. For actuators fabricated with the hydrogel of various thicknesses and with the dielectric elastomer of various prestretches, excellent agreements are found between experimental data and theoretical predictions.