Digital shape-morphing thermo-mechanical metamaterials

Abstract

There is an ongoing pursuit to develop intelligent mechanical systems with multifunctional capabilities. These capabilities include sensing external stimuli, actuating and adapting in response, and processing and storing logical information. Enabling such functions opens new avenues for autonomous systems across adaptive structures, soft robotics, medical devices, and consumer electronics. Here, we introduce digital shape-morphing thermo-mechanical metamaterials (DSTMs) capable of sensing thermal and mechanical stimuli, deploying and adapting through shape morphing, and performing digital computation. These functionalities are achieved by integrating mechanical metamaterials with temperature-responsive components, modular designs, and digital electronics. DSTMs leverage engineered mechanical behaviors to undergo temperature-induced autonomous deformations, enabling programmable shape morphing and morphology-based computation. We design DSTM unit cells as modular building blocks to achieve programmable shape morphing and customized logic gate constructions. Theoretical, numerical, and experimental studies validate the performance of DSTMs. Logical input storage and digital output realization are achieved through mechanical and thermal processing techniques, enabling implementation of digital logic gates including AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, and XNOR. Furthermore, temperature-induced sequential and non-sequential programmable shape morphing, shape recoverability, and modal bifurcation functionalities of the DSTMs are demonstrated.