Dielectric elastomers (DEs) have shown a significant potential for actuation applications such as artificial muscles, due to their low weight, fast response, silent operation, and high efficiency. DEs with large actuation strain or low driving voltages are usually incorporated with high permittivity fillers. Ionic liquid (IL) presents a promising improvement on relative permittivity of DEs, however, its aggregation in the elastomer matrix by the physical blending modification has limited the improvement on actuating performances. In this study, a new strategy is developed to prepare high-performance PDMS elastomers by the formation of bis(1-ethylene-imidazole-3-ium) bromide between the PDMS backbones, after which the actuation performance of the IL-modified elastomer is investigated.
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