Mechanics of Spontaneous Deformation in Nanomembranes: Theory, Simulations, and Experiments

Mechanical forces play a key role in the shaping of versatile morphologies of thin structures in natural and synthetic systems. The study of nonlinear mechanics approximated by linear elasticity theory and instability analysis of thin structures will facilitate understanding of morphology generation in these systems and promote the development of programmable microfabrication techniques and novel micro-/nano-functional devices. For this purpose, the morphology and deformation of thin ribbons, plates, and beams and their instabilities are investigated through both theoretical modeling and experiments. Theoretical modeling of these thin structures are systematically studied, followed by the discussions on bistability and reconfiguration of bi-layered nanomembrane, and self-assembly flexible layers, and multilayer structures. These flexible materials are capable of exhibiting bending, wrinkling, rolling, and twisting with large deformation and mechanical instability induced by geometric nonlinearity. These nanomembranes materials with reconfigurable structures can be widely used as environment sensors, actuators, energy-harvesting, and mechanical metamaterials.