Hideko Koshima was professor of chemistry at Ehime University and moved to Waseda University in 2014. Her expertise is in solid-state photochemistry, materials chemistry, and chiral chemistry. Over the decade her research has focused on mechanical crystal materials. She received Japanese Woman Scientists Association Award in 2001 and Japanese Photochemistry Association Award for Distinguished Contribution to Photochemistry in 2014.
Title: “Towards CRYSTBOTS using mechanical crystals”
Abstract
Mechanically responsive organic crystals that exhibit macroscopic motions by external stimuli have been studied intensively over the past two decades. Photoisomerization has been mainly applied to induce crystal actuation and phase transition is another actuation mechanism. However, both photoisomerization and phase transition have some disadvantages, such as the fact that they only occur in a limited number of crystals. Recently we discovered fast crystal actuation due to photothermal effect as well as natural vibration. Both the phenomena occur in all crystals that absorb light, so it is now possible to actuate any crystal. We are from now trying to practical application of mechanical crystals to crystal robots ‘CRYSTBOTS’.