Encoding and Storage of Information in Mechanical Metamaterials

• Published in: Advanced science 2023-07, Vol.10 (20), p.e2301581-n/a
• Main Authors: Meng, Zhiqiang, Yan, Hujie, Liu, Mingchao, Qin, Wenkai, Genin, Guy M., Chen, Chang Qing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Deformation; information encoding; Information storage; multistep deformation; pixelated mechanical metamaterials; Temperature; tunable bistability
• ISSN: 2198-3844; 2198-3844
• DOI: 10.1002/advs.202301581

Information processing using material's own properties has gained increasing interest. Mechanical metamaterials, due to their diversity of deformation modes and wide design space, can be used to realize information processing, such as computing and storage. Here a mechanical metamaterial system is demonstrated for material‐based encoding and storage of data through programmed reconfigurations of the metamaterial's structured building blocks. Sequential encoding and decoding are achieved in the three‐dimensional (3D) printed pixelated mechanical metamaterial via kirigami‐based “pixels” with programmable, temperature‐dependent bistability. The mechanical metamaterial is demonstrated via a multistep deformation of encoding messages of texts and surfaces with arrays of binary data, and then decoding them by applying a predetermined stretching and heating regimen to sequentially retrieve layers of stored information and display them on its surface. This approach serves as a general framework to enable the encoding and storage of data with mechanical metamaterials. The paper reports a pixelated mechanical metamaterial that can be 3D printed with multiple layers of information within its structure. The mechanical metamaterial can reveal the stored multiple messages sequentially on a surface of the material over the course of a series of physical manipulations such as specified heating and stretching.