Research Data Leeds Repository

Citation

Street, Aidan, Berrow, Stuart, Wang, Zhenming, Cooper, Emily J., Mattsson, Johan and Gleeson, Helen (2026) Data for 'Frustrated Smectic Liquid Crystal Elastomers as Multifunctional Mechanical Metamaterials'. University of Leeds. [Dataset] https://doi.org/10.5518/1851

Dataset description

Auxetics are materials that show a negative Poisson’s ratio, i.e. thickening when under strain. The discovery of nematic liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) as molecular auxetic materials was a paradigm-shift in the design of mechanical metamaterials as they are tuneable, transparent, scalable, non-porous and facile to fabricate. Here, we report that smectic LCEs extend known synthetic molecular auxetics to a second family. The LCEs are acrylate-based, lightly crosslinked (~8 mol%) and polymerised in the nematic phase of a precursor mixture. The resulting smectic-A LCEs exhibit correlation lengths of a few molecular lengths, suggesting layer frustration, which we confirm occurs via the mechanism predicted by de Gennes in 1979. Three of the LCEs described exhibit negative Poisson’s ratios at strains above ~0.4, thereby marking the first observation of auxetic behaviour in smectic LCEs. Shear oscillatory measurements on the LCEs demonstrate highly anisotropic moduli, which in turn enables elucidation of highly anisotropic adhesive properties, with differences as large as 20x between geometries. Furthermore, we discern that in the homeotropic case, shear moduli are comparable in both nematic and smectic A LCEs, validating theoretical expectations for such systems

Subjects:	F000 - Physical sciences > F200 - Materials science F000 - Physical sciences > F300 - Physics
Divisions:	Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > School of Physics and Astronomy
Related resources:	Location Type https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76776-x Publication https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/244504/ Publication
License:	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Date deposited:	09 Oct 2026 14:25
URI:	https://archive.researchdata.leeds.ac.uk/id/eprint/1646
Additional details Additional details Creators or authors: Creators ORCID Other ID Email Primary affiliation Primary affiliation ID Primary affiliation ID type Secondary affiliation Secondary affiliation ID Secondary affiliation ID type Street, Aidan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7102-7644 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Berrow, Stuart https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3764-1613 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Wang, Zhenming https://orcid.org/0009-0003-7205-1288 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Cooper, Emily J. https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2440-2492 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Mattsson, Johan https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7057-2192 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Gleeson, Helen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7494-2100 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Type of data: Dataset Research funders: EPSRC Grant numbers: EP/V054724/1, EP/X0348011 Publication date: 2026 Resource language: English Metadata language: English Publisher: University of Leeds Last Modified: 12 Oct 2026 10:40

Files

Documentation

Readme [3kB] Readme [3kB] Readme [3kB] Security: Anyone File name: README.txt Content type: Documentation Description: Readme file Mime-Type: text/plain License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) File size: 3kB

Data

Data [10MB] Data [10MB] Data [10MB] Security: Anyone File name: Data.zip Content type: Data Description: Adhesion_Data; Auxetic_Smectic_Data; Dynamic_Mechanical_Analysis_Data; Polarised_Raman_Spectroscopy_Data; Mime-Type: application/zip License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) File size: 10MB

Program

Code [683B] Code [683B] Code [683B] Security: Anyone File name: Code.zip Content type: Program Description: Nelder-Mead minimisation of smectic-A free energy Mime-Type: application/zip License: MIT License File size: 683B