MEMS SEMINAR: Mechanics of Metamaterials – Origami and Kirigami
Metamaterials are synthetic materials engineered to have properties not found in naturally occurring materials. They are being designed for a broad set of applications ranging from light modulation, wearable electronic devices, microrobotics, and energy dissipation and redirection to mention just a few. In this seminar, I will discuss two metamaterials we have investigated, origami and kirigami metamaterials. Both have their origin in Japanese art, one based on paper folding and the other based on paper cutting. Origami metamaterials offer a promising approach for the design of deployable structures with property tunability. Together with unusual mechanical properties, the stacking and space-filling capabilities of certain origami patterns make them ideal candidates for the design of architected metamaterials. In this presentation, I will discuss results of two-photon 3D printing and in situ scanning electron microscopy mechanical testing of micron-sized origami metamaterials exhibiting several unusual mechanical properties such as anisotropic stiffness, configuration-dependent auxeticity, elastic instabilities and large degree of recovery upon unloading, a unique combination insofar absent from the portfolio of mechanical metamaterials. The second case study will examine kirigami metamaterials, another form of