Autonomous Matter
Mechanical Metamaterials
The Mechanical Metamaterials group explores how physical phenomena enable new forms of information processing by designing multistable metamaterials made of bistable ‘material bits’. These can process information without external power, enable embodied intelligence in smart materials and minimal robots, and allow to uncover new principles that also extend to other systems.
Research focus
The group aims to uncover how physical phenomena can be explored for new approaches to information processing. We design and produce metamaterials whose remarkable and often counterintuitive properties stem from their geometric structure. In particular, we focus on multistable materials that are composed of many bistable elements that act as ‘material bits’. Together, such materials can process information, such as counting how often they are compressed, or detecting a specific sequence of inputs.
These materials open routes to completely new ways of computing without external power sources, and to embed intelligence in minimal smart robots that do not require electronic brains. Some of the principles we have discovered in mechanical metamaterials can also be applied in chemical, electronic or optical systems, opening up new routes for smart materials and embodied intelligence.
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