From 1 - 6 September 2025, our team participated in the Nineteenth International Congress on Artificial Materials for Novel Wave Phenomena (Metamaterials 2025), held in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The event featured a 4-day scientific conference (1 - 4 September) followed by a 2-day Doctoral School (5 - 6 September). Co-organized by METAMORPHOSE VI AISBL, the University of Amsterdam, and AMOLF, the Congress continues the long-standing tradition of the Metamaterials series, bringing together researchers in engineering, physics, applied mathematics, and material science to share the latest advances in artificial materials and their applications across electromagnetism, optics, photonics, acoustics, mechanics, transport, and multi-physics.
Contribution by Dr. Aniket Pal:
As part of the scientific program, Dr. Aniket Pal, presented his work on:
“Mechanical Instabilities in Flexible Mechanical Metamaterials Across Scales.”
Dr. Pal’s talk explored how mechanical instabilities - such as bifurcation buckling and snap-through motion in multistable mechanisms - can be harnessed to expand the capabilities and functionalities of soft systems. By employing instability-driven unit cells within periodic architectures, his research demonstrates how synergy at the material scale can lead to fascinating global responses in mechanical metamaterials.
Key highlights of the presentation included:
- Macro-scale systems: Using external fields to dynamically program instabilities, enabling reprogrammable devices for mechanical computation.
- System-level design: Developing rational strategies to integrate multiple heterogeneous computing elements into unified architectures.
- Micro-scale structures: Exploiting reversible thermal shrinking of hydrogels to trigger buckling transformations in micro-metastructures, with potential applications in information encryption.
The contribution reflects our group’s commitment to advancing the understanding of programmable instabilities and their role in shaping the next generation of mechanical metamaterials.