Related papers: The machine is the material: Structures that mimic…
Materials that respond to external stimuli by expanding or contracting provide a transduction route that integrates sensing and actuation powered directly by the stimuli. This motivates us to build colloidal scale robots using these…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
Mechanical cloaks are materials engineered to manipulate the elastic response around objects to make them indistinguishable from their homogeneous surroundings. Typically, methods based on material-parameter transformations are used to…
Hyperparameters and learning algorithms for neuromorphic hardware are usually chosen by hand. In contrast, the hyperparameters and learning algorithms of networks of neurons in the brain, which they aim to emulate, have been optimized…
Future development of the modern nanoelectronics and its flagships internet of things and artificial intelligence as well as many related applications is largely associated with memristive elements. This technology offers a broad spectrum…
Responsive, adaptive and intelligent are widely used but inconsistently defined descriptors of soft matter. A conceptual framework is proposed in which the three classes are information channels of increasing architectural complexity: a…
Tailoring materials to achieve a desired behavior in specific applications is of significant scientific and industrial interest as design of materials is a key driver to innovation. Overcoming the rather slow and expertise-bound traditional…
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…
Memory effects are ubiquitous in nature and are particularly relevant at the nanoscale where the dynamical properties of electrons and ions strongly depend on the history of the system, at least within certain time scales. We review here…
The discovery of advanced materials is the cornerstone of human technological development and progress. The structures of materials and their corresponding properties are essentially the result of a complex interplay of multiple degrees of…
Amorphous materials are solids that lack long-range atomic order but possess complex short- and medium-range order. Unlike crystalline materials that can be described by unit cells containing few up to hundreds of atoms, amorphous materials…
The topological properties of materials are, until now, associated with the features of their crystalline structure, although translational symmetry is not an explicit requirement of the topological phases. Recent studies of hopping models…
Natural structural materials, such as bone and wood, can autonomously adapt their mechanical properties in response to loading to prevent failure. They smartly control the addition of material in locations of high stress by utilizing…
Multi-stable mechanical structures find cutting-edge applications across various domains due to their reconfigurability, which offers innovative possibilities for engineering and technology advancements. This study explores the emergence of…
Biomaterial systems have allowed for the in vitro production of complex, emergent tissue behaviors that were not possible with conventional 2D culture systems allowing for analysis of the normal development as well as disease processes. We…
It is up to now a challenge to control the conduction of heat. Here we develop a method to distort the temperature distribution signature of an object at will. As a result, the object accurately exhibits the same temperature distribution…
Materials that dissipate energy efficiently under high-speed impacts, from micrometeoroid strikes on spacecraft to ballistic penetration in protective systems, are essential for maintaining structural integrity in extreme environments. Yet,…
In this work, we investigate the use of pre-twisted metallic ribbons as building blocks for shape-changing structures. We manufacture these elements by twisting initially flat ribbons about their (lengthwise) centroidal axis into a…
Since the thermal conduction equation has form invariance under coordinate transformation, one can design thermal metamaterials with novel functions by tailoring materials' thermal conductivities. In this work, we establish a different…
Spatial symmetries and invariances play an important role in the behaviour of materials and should be respected in the description and modelling of material properties. The focus here is the class of physically symmetric and positive…