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Metamaterials are engineered materials composed of specially designed unit cells that exhibit extraordinary properties beyond those of natural materials. Complex engineering tasks often require heterogeneous unit cells to accommodate…
Mechanical metamaterials are architected manmade materials that allow for unique behaviors not observed in nature, making them promising candidates for a wide range of applications. Existing metamaterials lack tunability as their properties…
Emerging multiphysics metamaterials offer a distinct possibility for regulating complex physical processes. However, two severe constraints still lower their functionality and tunability. First, multiphysics functionality is fixed once…
Rapid advances in additive manufacturing over the past decade have kindled widespread interest in the rational design of metamaterials with unique properties. However, many applications require multi-physics metamaterials, where multiple…
Deployable structures, essential across various engineering applications ranging from umbrellas to satellites, are evolving to include soft, morphable designs where geometry drives transformation. However, a major challenge for soft…
Mechanical metamaterials present a promising platform for seemingly impossible mechanics. They often require incompatibility of their elementary building blocks, yet a comprehensive understanding of its role remains elusive. Relying on an…
Mechanical metamaterials actuators achieve pre-determined input--output operations exploiting architectural features encoded within a single 3D printed element, thus removing the need of assembling different structural components. Despite…
Combinatorial problems arising in puzzles, origami, and (meta)material design have rare sets of solutions, which define complex and sharply delineated boundaries in configuration space. These boundaries are difficult to capture with…
We experimentally and numerically study the precise role of geometry for the mechanics of biholar metamaterials, quasi-2D slabs of rubber patterned by circular holes of two alternating sizes. We recently showed how the response to uniaxial…
Soft robots achieve functionality through tight coupling among geometry, material composition, and actuation. As a result, effective design optimization requires these three aspects to be considered jointly rather than in isolation. This…
Triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) metamaterials characterized by mathematically-controlled topologies exhibit better mechanical properties compared to uniform structures. The unit cell topology of such metamaterials can be further…
Auxetic materials become thicker rather than thinner when stretched, exhibiting an unusual negative Poisson's ratio well suited for designing shape transforming metamaterials. Current auxetic designs, however, are often monostable and…
Mechanical metamaterial is a synthetic material that can possess extraordinary physical characteristics, such as abnormal elasticity, stiffness, and stability, by carefully designing its internal structure. To make metamaterials contain…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Structures with artificial mechanical properties, often called mechanical metamaterials, exhibit divergent yet tunable performance. Various types of mechanical metamaterials have been proposed, which harness light or magnetic interactions,…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
Harnessing the rich nonlinear dynamics of highly-deformable materials has the potential to unlock the next generation of functional smart materials and devices. However, unlocking such potential requires effective strategies to spatially…
Hierarchically designed mechanical metamaterials involve nested levels of structural organization, mimicking natural structures (such as bones, wood, and bird feathers) to create advanced functional materials. Compositional hierarchy, a…
We create mechanical metamaterials whose response to uniaxial compression can be programmed by lateral confinement, allowing monotonic, non-monotonic and hysteretic behavior. These functionalities arise from a broken rotational symmetry…
Construction throughout history typically assumes that its blueprints and building blocks are pre-determined. However, recent work suggests that alternative approaches can enable new paradigms for structure formation. Aleatory…