RE-PROGRAMMABLE ANISOTROPISM TOWARDS INTELLIGENT AND SUSTAINABLE MATERIAL SYSTEMS

Abstract

Programmable materials form an emerging research discipline, involving user-designable materials behavior to endow a myriad of new, smart capabilities to conventional materials such as programmable mechanical reinforcement, actuation, sensing and self-transformation. These materials are customizable in form and function, and prescribing complex anisotropies is one of the main approaches to their conception. However, it is often not feasible to deterministically reconfigure and readapt those materials after they are “programmed” through irreversible physical or chemical transformations. Resolving this issue would allow for functional re-adaptability of material systems, potentially achieving a closed-loop material cycle. This project introduces a class of re-programmable anisotropic materials with the flexibility of altering their form and encoded directional properties. Facilitating this, a technique coined as Localized Phase-Transition Ordering is developed for reversible and deterministic voxelated ordering of nanocomposites. The versatility provides a promising avenue for a circular economy to meet the persistent environmental sustainability challenges.