Danqing Liu explores how interactions with digital systems can be improved through the sense of touch. To achieve this, she develops advanced liquid crystal polymers that respond to light. Her work has recently been published in two internationally recognized scientific journals within just a few days of each other, an exceptional accomplishment.
Danqing Liu is a researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering & Chemistry . She develops soft materials that can move on their own. Liu's research received international recognition through publications in Science Advances and Matter & Light. The two papers were published only two days apart. At the heart of both the research and the publications is a central idea: training materials to mimic human actions. "My goal is to add human feelings to the digital world," Liu says.
Learning simple tasks
In the Science Advances paper, Liu and her team, Pengrong Lyu and Sam Weima , demonstrate trainable soft electronics with memory in liquid crystal polymers. The team created an azobenzene-functionalized liquid crystal polymer device that stores information in its molecular state, allowing light to write and erase memory while electrical signals trigger movement. They show that the material can learn a simple classification task and then use the learned state to control an artificial hand that reproduces human gestures.
While the technology shares similarities with robotics, the smart materials enable movements that more closely resemble natural human motor skills. Liu and her team's work sits at the intersection of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, chemistry, and design. She is developing new ways to bring technology and human movement closer together.
Coordinated movement
In both publications, released on July 7 and July 8, Liu and her research team, Duygu Polat and Mert Astam explain how they succeeded in controlling liquid crystal polymers (LCPs) with light and synchronizing the movements of individual polymers. A polymer is a molecule made up of repeating units that are chemically linked together.
Liu explains: "The different LCPs work together effectively because they transfer movement and forces to one another through flexible connections. When one component moves, it passes that movement on to the next component. This creates coordinated motion without cables or a central control system. The collective movement emerges because the materials respond directly to each other."
She continues: "This design principle could contribute to the development of autonomous soft robots and materials that can coordinate themselves."
Feeling what you see
Liu envisions applications that bridge the virtual and physical worlds: "Imagine being able to physically feel, through a device, what you see in virtual or augmented reality. I believe that could help address certain mental health challenges."
Although this seamless interaction between virtual and physical environments is still a vision for the future, Liu is already contributing to other practical applications. One example is an interactive steering wheel that provides tactile feedback while driving, helping drivers navigate more intuitively.
To further develop this technology, she will soon travel to Japan to collaborate with Waseda University on the automotive haptics project. This partnership is part of the NWO Vici grant she received in February.
Bringing such innovations to life requires integrating expertise from multiple scientific disciplines, a process that is both essential and challenging. However, Liu is undeterred by the multidisciplinary nature of her work. "That is my second nature."
Recognition
Liu sees the two publications as "recognition that we as a research team are on the right track." She also hopes that the papers will attract broader interest from the scientific community.
That visibility will support the next step: transforming fundamental research into real-world applications. "What makes this research unique is that we translate scientific results into practical applications in which digital systems provide tactile feedback."
