MXenes: The Miracle Material Powering Tomorrow’s Soft Robots

Meet MXenes — ultra-thin, futuristic materials that move like muscles when hit by light. No motors, no batteries — just pure atomic wizardry. At Duke University, researchers are fine-tuning these smart materials at the atomic level, paving the way for programmable, light-powered soft robots of the future.

Transcript

00:00:03 Meet vaccines. Futuristic materials just a few atoms thick yet full of potential. Discovered less than 15 years ago, vaccines are already making waves in sensors, energy storage, and soft robotics. They bend when exposed to light, acting like tiny artificial muscles. No batteries, no motors required. Maxines are made of highly conductive

00:00:26 transition metals which let electrons move freely through stacked 2D layers. When exposed to light, they absorb and hold onto the energy, converting it to heat. This heat makes water evaporate, causing shrinkage, but not always evenly, thanks to their layered structure and surface chemistry. That uneven shrinkage makes them curl,

00:00:47 bend, or twist. All controllable by design. At Duke, electrical and computer engineering professor Harry Wong and his team are pushing vaccines even further. With innovative engineering, they can precisely swap out atoms on the surface, like performing atomic level surgery to greatly enhance their efficiency. Their goal is to develop Maxine

00:01:09 materials to enable more flexible, programmable, and resilient soft robotics, all controlled with nothing but light.