Stimuli-responsive metamaterials with information-driven elastodynamics programming

Abstract

Biological stimuli-responsiveness has inspired material-based smart systems in various fields. The stimuli-responsive materials are generally used as building blocks to construct bioinspired systems with a programmable elastostatics property. However, the programmability of the elastodynamics property in stimuli-responsive material systems remains a major challenge. By mimicking species of the genus Mimosa, here we report a stimuli-responsive elastic metamaterial with shape-morphing resonators to realize the information-driven elastodynamics programming. The local resonance state of shape-morphing resonators can adaptively change from disorder to order upon external stimuli, which is programmed into the global dynamical responses of the metamaterial system. The designed metamaterials exhibit a mechanical implementation of read-write operations, leading to proprioception of stimulation information with capabilities of information interaction, perceptual coding, and physical encryption. Our work takes a significant step toward the information-driven elastodynamics programming in stimuli-responsive material systems, which may have a broad impact in design of devices with material-based proprioception for sensing, computation, and communication.