The recent advances and popularity of 3D printing technology have centered around building polymerbased 'plastic' materials, due to their low cost, simple and efficient processing, and mechanical toughness. For this reason, printable polymers are actively recruited to create 'ceramic resins' that allow more facile fabrication of ceramic materials that are difficult to print directly. Herein, a brief history and the current state of ceramic 3D printing technology aided by polymer is summarized. In addition, a new ceramic 3D printing technology using polymer-derived ceramics (PDC) is also introduced.

Recently, polymer-metal composite (IPMC)-based ionic artificial muscle has been drawing a huge attention for its excellent soft actuator performance having outstanding soft actuator performance with efficient conversion of electrical energy to mechanical energy under low working voltage. In addition, light, flexible and soft nature of IPMC and high bending strain response enabled development of versatile sensor application in association with soft actuator. In this paper, current issues of IPMC were discussed including standardizing preparation steps, relaxation under DC bias, inhibiting solvent evaporation, and improving poor output force. Solutions for these drawbacks of IPMC have recently been suggested in recent studies. After following explanation of the IPMC working mechanism, we investigate the main factors that affect the operating performance of the IPMC. Then, we reviewed the optimized IPMC actuator fabrication conditions especially for the preparation process, additive selection for a thicker membrane, water content, solvent substitutes, encapsulation, etc. Lastly, we considered the pros and cons of IPMCs for sensor application in a theoretical and experimental point of view. The strategies discussed in this paper to overcome such deficiencies of IPMCs are highly expected to provide a scope for IPMC utilization in soft robotics application.

Recently, 4D printing technology has received considerable attention in various industries and research fields including soft robotics, tissue engineering, electronics. In 4D printing process, 3D printed object transforms itself into programmed structure by the input of external energy. Thus, this process requires not only smart materials, capable of changing their properties or features in response to external stimuli such as electricity, temperature, light, etc., but also smart structures, multi-material 3D printing, simulation and so on. In this review, the concept, technical elements and potential of 4d printing are presented.

Magnetoelectric (ME) composites composed of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric materials derive interfacial coupling of magnetoelectric conversion between magnetic and electric properties, thus enabling to detect ultra-low magnetic field. To improve the performance of ME composite sensors, various research teams have explored adopting highly efficient magnetostrictive and piezoelectric phases, tailoring of device geometry/structure, and developing signal process technique. As a result, latest ME composites have achieved not only outstanding ME conversion coefficient but also sensing of ultra-low magnetic field below 1pT. This article reviews the recent research trend of ME composites for sensing of ultra-low magnetic field.

Global effort has resulted in tremendous progress with energy harvesters that extract mechanical energy from ambient sources, convert it to electrical energy, and use it for systems such as wrist watches, mobile electronic devices, wireless sensor nodes, health monitoring, and biosensors. However, harvesting a single energy source only still pauses a great challenge in driving sustainable and maintenance-free monitoring and sensing devices. Over the last few years, research on high-performance mechanical energy harvesters at the micro and nanoscale has been directed toward the development of hybrid devices that either aim to harvest mechanical energy in addition to other types of energies simultaneously or to exploit multiple mechanisms to more effectively harvest mechanical energy. Herein, we appraise the rational designs for multiple energy harvesting, specifically state-of-the-art hybrid mechanical energy harvesters that employ multiple piezoelectric and triboelectric mechanisms to efficiently harvest mechanical energy. We identify the critical material parameters and device design criteria that lead to high-performance hybrid mechanical energy harvesters. Finally, we address the future perspectives and remaining challenges in the field.

Abnormally large electromechanical strain properties have been reported in bismuth-based piezoelectric ceramics, which cast a promise for replacing the market-dominating PZT-based piezoelectric ceramics in actuator applications. In spite of these large strains in bismuth-based piezoelectric ceramics, there still remains a critical issue for its safe transfer to practical applications, representatively, a relatively high operating field required to obtain the large strain properties. To overcome the challenge, much attention has been paid to so-called 0-3(or 3-0) type ceramic/ceramic composite approach to better tailoring the strain properties of bismuth-based piezoelectric ceramics. The approach turns out to be highly effective, leading to a drastic decrease in the operating electric field for these materials. Besides, both extensive and intensive search for the related mechanism revealed that the reduction in the operating electric field is largely due to the contribution from polarization coupling or strain coupling model between two different ceramics. This article reviews the status of the art in the development of novel ceramic/ceramic composites to make large incipient piezostrains in bismuth-based lead-free piezoelectric ceramics practical.

In this study, the phase transition behaviors of lead-free (Na_1/2Bi_1/2TiO₃)_(1-x)-(BaTiO₃)_x (NBT-BT) are investigated by using Brillouin spectroscopy. The elastic properties, sound velocity and absorption coefficient of NBT-BT are characterized as a function of temperature along different crystallographic axes. The temperature dependences of the elastic constants of NBT-BT near the morphotropic phase boundary are determined for the first time. The unpoled NBT-BT single crystals exhibits the typical relaxor behaviors, presenting broad acoustic and dielectric anomalies. The application of electric field induced discontinuous changes in the elastic properties at ~110℃, which indicates field-induced phase transition occurred. The electric field also changes the dielectric constant from more relaxor-like to ferroelectric-like dielectric behavior.