A STRANGE new material that contracts like a muscle when you shine light on
it could one day make brain surgery safer. The light-activated material could be
used in surgical tools, keeping electricity well away from sensitive brain
tissue.
Most artificial muscles use polymers that contract when a voltage is applied
across them. Others need to be immersed in solutions of ions to work
(New Scientist, 3 June 2000, p 14).
But Mark Warner at the University of
Cambridge and Heino Finkelmann at Fribourg University in Germany decided to try
to make a muscle react to light.
To a…
