Inspired by soft-bodied animals and plants, soft actuators offer potential applications in artificial muscles, wearables, and medical devices. Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), a class of stimuli-responsive materials, exhibit dynamic deformations reminiscent of natural biological systems. These deformations arise from liquid crystal phases dictated by the molecular architecture of mesogens. By employing magnetic alignment techniques, we introduce anisotropy into LCEs independent of their geometry, allowing for complex macroscale deformations within a single material. A key advantage of magnetic alignment is its ability to decouple the sample’s geometry from the director field while encoding director field gradients, thereby providing enhanced flexibility in material design. Herein we demonstrate that weak magnetic fields result in the formation of spatially varying <P2> order parameter gradients in LCE macroscale film. These gradients, in turn, allow for local tuning of deformation magnitudes within a single material. We highlight the potential of order parameter gradients in modeling and designing next-generation soft actuators with precisely controllable deformations.
