Corrugated plastic inspires a new design principle for programmable materials

Corrugated plastic turns out to be exemplary of a new class of "multistable" metamaterials that can reversibly change shape. This insight can lead to new applications, from robots to medical devices. Physicists Anne Meeussen (previously AMOLF/Leiden University, now Harvard University) and Martin van Hecke (AMOLF/Leiden University) describe these materials in a Nature article that was published on 20 September 2023.