Omniphobicity is gaining increasing interest due to its ability to promote dynamic liquid mobility and impart multifunctional properties, such as self-cleaning, antifouling, and anti-icing. Among the strategies for achieving omniphobicity, Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) stand out for their ability to repel liquids across a wide range of surface tensions with high stability. However, so far, integrating SLIPS into complex 3D structures while maintaining omniphobicity and low surface-tension repellency has remained challenging. Here, we report the fabrication of omniphobic 3D-printed SLIPS via digital light processing (DLP). The printed architectures feature an internal reservoir connected to the surface through microchannel networks, enabling stable retention and continuous replenishment of a fluorinated lubricant. A photocurable ink composed of acrylate monomers and silica nanoparticles was formulated to enable 3D printing of high-resolution porous structures, which were subsequently silanized with a fluorinated precursor to ensure lubricant compatibility and enhance mechanical robustness. The resulting SLIPS exhibited very low sliding angles, including 3.5° ± 0.5° for water and 2.0° ± 0.4° for n-hexane, and self-cleaning capabilities. This work presents a versatile strategy for designing 3D omniphobic SLIPS architectures unattainable by other fabrication methods, with potential applications in antifouling, anti-icing, and multifunctional devices such as soft robotics.

The widespread adoption of automation to work alongside humans has opened opportunities to integrate soft robotic grippers with a sense of touch for executing a wide variety of tasks. In this work, we demonstrate a visuo-tactile sensor for soft grippers, which is based on cholesteric liquid crystal elastomers (CLCE) that uses an embedded camera-vision system to convert the force distribution on the contact surface into an RGB map, to detect and distinguish the applied force without complex transmission and processing of electrical signals. A new method was developed for rapid and cost-effective fabrication of wafer-scale CLCE sensing layers with high sensitivity and excellent mechanochromic performance. By integrating the CLCE sensing layer with a 3D-printed array of microtips, mili-Newton forces can be detected by color changes with a resolution of ∼2 mN. Through an optimization algorithm, the computational load of color image processing is minimized, and real-time fast processing of color signals and high-precision tactile force prediction are performed using a low-cost Raspberry Pi 4 camera. The processed signal guides a soft robotic gripper to complete grasping actions through a closed-loop force control. The integration of such mechanochromic films with suitable mechanical actuators could lead to miniaturized and untethered tactile sensors.

Creating conductive materials that combine mechanical compliance and shape adaptability is a key to the development of integrated soft robots with sensors. Here, we present a new 3D printed porous elastomer that functions both as a gripper and a sensor. It is composed of polyurethane-acrylate and dopamine-methacrylamide sponge that enables metal salt reduction to realize metallization capability. The resulting sponge is conductive, can adapt to objects having various shapes, and can function simultaneously as a sensor and as a structural element. The porous objects are formed by emulsion templating, which yields an interconnected open-cell network that exposes catechol groups throughout the bulk, enabling uniform silver deposition via the embedded redox groups. The resulting metallized porous elastomer shows high stretchability and mechanical resilience while maintaining conductivity under large deformations. During uniaxial tension, it exhibits an initial conductivity of ∼328 S·m⁻¹ that decreases reversibly with strain, remaining stable over 500 cycles at 100% elongation with a gauge factor of ∼3. Leveraging this intrinsic coupling of mechanical and electrical responses, 3D-printed porous meta-materials function as tunable resistors, and a proof-of-concept soft gripper demonstrates simultaneous actuation and sensing. This approach provides a versatile route toward fully 3D-printed, multifunctional soft robotic systems in which the body and the sensor act as a single component, with programmable electromechanical behavior.