Programmable liquid hints at widespread applications
A ‘metafluid’ formed from collapsible elastic shells suspended in oil exhibits very different properties at different pressures
An international team of scientists has created a liquid metamaterial, or ‘metafluid’, which can be manipulated to change its properties, like its viscosity and transparency.
The creators of the material found that it behaved like a Newtonian liquid in its normal state – when its viscosity is proportional only to its temperature – but as a shear thinning non-Newtonian liquid when compressed, which suggests a range of possible applications from robotics to shock-absorbers.1
While most metamaterials have been artificially-structured solids with desirable properties – such as the directional flow of electromagnetic radiation2 like light – the experimental metafluid aims to introduce some of these in a liquid form.