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Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly
Reconfigurable metamaterial from Harvard can change its shape (and function) in an instant.
Designed at Harvard, this mesmerizing reconfigurable metamaterial could represent the future of design engineering.pic.twitter.com/fYzDvSaa6j
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 25, 2025
But what if a material could contain within its structure, multiple functions and easily and autonomously switch between them?Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have developed a general framework to design reconfigurable metamaterials. The design strategy is scale independent, meaning it can be applied to everything from meter-scale architectures to reconfigurable nano-scale systems such as photonic crystals, waveguides and metamaterials to guide heat.
(Via Harvard.)...here we introduce a robust design strategy based on space-filling tessellations of polyhedra to create three-dimensional reconfigurable materials comprising a periodic assembly of rigid plates and elastic hinges. Guided by numerical analysis and physical prototypes, we systematically explore the mobility of the designed structures and identify a wide range of qualitatively different deformations and internal rearrangements.
(Via Rational design of reconfigurable prismatic architected materials.)
My first encounter with the idea of a shape-memory metal alloy was in the remarkable (and Nebula award-winning) 1966 short novel Babel 17 by Samuel R. Delany:
He raised his hand. "Suppose you needed a gun"—in the Barons's hand now was a sleek vibra-gun of a model later than she had ever seen — "or a crescent wrench." Now he held a foot long wrench. He adjusted the opening. "Or a machete." The blade glistened as he waved his arm back...An unexpected property of polarized matter is tensile-memory." They moved toward an archway Into the next room. "Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules. At any angle to the direction that the matter has been polarized in, each molecule has completely free movement. Just jar it, and it falls into that structure like a rubber figure returning to shape." The Baron glanced back at the case.
"Simple, really. There"—he motioned toward the filing cabinets along the wall—"is the real weapon: approximately three thousand individual plans incorporating that little polarized chunk..."
(Read more about Tensile Memory Polarized Matter)
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