Dissipation-mediated liquid crystal elastomer self-jumper under constant illumination

Self-sustained oscillations enable periodic motion under constant environmental stimulation and play a central role in autonomous actuators and soft robotic systems. Most reported self-sustained systems rely on self-shadowing in structures to intermittently regulate photothermal input, while alternative feedback pathways based on energy dissipation remain underexplored. In this study, we present a liquid crystal elastomer self-jumper enabled by a heat sink plate, which introduces a controllable dissipation mechanism to sustain periodic snapping dynamics under constant illumination. Based on shallow-shell theory and a photothermal-responsive liquid crystal elastomer model, we derive the governing equations for the self-jumping process and perform a quasi-static analysis using an improved iterative method to reveal the critical conditions for triggering self-jumping. The heat sink plate induces alternating coupling between photothermal heating and contact-triggered cooling, giving rise to two typical regimes: a static regime and a self-jumping regime. The self-jumping period can be tuned by adjusting the geometric parameters, heat flux density, contraction coefficients, and heat sink plate temperature. In addition, the energy release and the maximum vertical displacement during self-jumping are investigated. With a simple structure, a tunable jumping period, and no electronic components, the proposed self-jumper offers a conceptual design and theoretical guidance for applications such as environmental sensing probes, miniature soft actuators, and bio-inspired jumping robots.