Achieving animate properties with nonlinear odd solids

ended

How can we create animate synthetic materials, able to sense, compute, and respond to their environment? To achieve these animate properties, one emerging class of materials stands out: odd solids. Odd solids use microscopic energy injection to break basic symmetries like Newton’s 3rd law, resulting in far-from-equilibrium phenomena forbidden in passive materials. These phenomena promise a toolkit for designing animate functionalities like robust locomotion and pattern formation. However, to realise animate properties odd solids face a fundamental challenge: microscopic energy injection inherently leads to nonlinear mechanical deformations, yet this nonlinear regime remains completely unexplored. In this proposal I will surpass this limitation, by characterising the nonlinear excitations of an odd solid, then using these excitations as a toolkit for designing animate properties. Using continuum mechanical theory and lattice simulations, I will derive new fundamental results on travelling patterns and topological defects in odd solids, and determine how these nonlinear excitations interact with environmental cues like substrate friction. Crucially, I will then use these excitation-environment interactions to realise animate properties in a ready-made table-top experimental system. This proposal marries my expertise in nonlinear excitations in active systems, with the host’s expertise in the experimental development of odd solids, to push our fundamental understanding of odd interactions beyond the linear regime. My results will open a new line of research in active matter and animate materials, applicable across systems in which odd interactions can be designed – from robotic matter, to living systems, down to the microscale. By positioning me at the heart of the emerging field of animate matter, and equipping me with a powerful new skillset of experimental experience and techniques, this Marie Curie action will take my scientific career to the next level.