{"id":234038,"date":"2026-03-25T06:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/magnets-turn-random-snapping-in-soft-metamaterials-into-repeatable-sequences"},"modified":"2026-03-25T06:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:03:08","slug":"magnets-turn-random-snapping-in-soft-metamaterials-into-repeatable-sequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/magnets-turn-random-snapping-in-soft-metamaterials-into-repeatable-sequences","title":{"rendered":"Magnets turn random snapping in soft metamaterials into repeatable sequences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/magnets-turn-random-snapping-in-soft-metamaterials-into-repeatable-sequences3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cutting patterns into elastic materials allows you to unfold those materials into new shapes, and researchers have now demonstrated the ability to control the sequence in which that unfolding happens by magnetizing the materials. The work represents a fundamental advance in our understanding of metamaterial behavior and has also demonstrated its utility in applications focused on absorbing kinetic energy.<\/p>\n<p>The paper, \u201cMagnetic coupling transforms random snapping into ordered sequences in soft metamaterials,\u201d is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.aec3182\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you cut a T-pattern into a polymer sheet, you\u2019ve created a metamaterial, because you\u2019ve changed the properties of the material,\u201d says Haoze Sun, first author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. \u201cIf you pull the metamaterial sheet, all the cuts essentially pop open at once. These openings create a mesh-like pattern and extend the length of the sheet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cutting patterns into elastic materials allows you to unfold those materials into new shapes, and researchers have now demonstrated the ability to control the sequence in which that unfolding happens by magnetizing the materials. The work represents a fundamental advance in our understanding of metamaterial behavior and has also demonstrated its utility in applications focused [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}