Laser‐Printed All‐Carbon Responsive Material and Soft Robot

Abstract Responsive materials and actuators are the basis for the development of various leading‐edge technologies but have so far mostly been designed based on polymers, incurring key limitations related to sensitivity and environmental tolerance. This work reports a new responsive material, laser‐printed carbon film (LPCF), produced via direct laser transformation of a liquid organic precursor and consists of graphitic and amorphous carbons. The high activity of amorphous carbon combined with the dual‐gradient structure enables the LPCF to have a actuation speed of 9400° s −1 in response to the stimulus of organic vapor. LPCF exhibits a conductivity of 950 S m −1 and excellent resistance to various extreme environmental conditions, which are unachievable for polymer‐based materials. Additionally, an LPCF‐based all‐carbon soft robot that can mimic the complex continuous backward somersaulting motions without manual intervention is constructed. The locomotion velocity of the robot reaches a value of 1.19 BL s −1 , which is almost one to two orders of magnitude faster than that of reported soft robots. This work not only offers a new paradigm for highly responsive materials but also provides a great design and engineering example for the next generation of biomimetic robots with life‐like performance.