Polymer-inspired mechanical metamaterials

[2512.16732] Polymer-inspired mechanical metamaterials Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Physics > Applied Physics arXiv:2512.16732 (physics) [Submitted on 18 Dec 2025 ( v1 ), last revised 12 May 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Polymer-inspired mechanical metamaterials Authors: Zhenyang Gao , Pengyuan Ren , Yifeng Dong , Gengchen Zheng , Min-Son Pham , Xiao Shang , Shaojia Wang , Shuo Yang , Zijue Tang , Yongbing Li , Hua Sun , Yi Wua , Hongjian Jiang , Lan Zhang , Tobin Filleter , Lingyu Kong , Kun Zhou , Haowei Wanga , Yang Lu , Yu Zou , Hongze Wang View PDF Abstract: Metamaterials benefit from unique architected patterns to achieve lightweight with exceptional mechanical properties inaccessible to conventional materials. Typical mechanical metamaterials are inspired by crystal-like lattice structures, whose closely packed frameworks often exhibit a rigid mechanical nature. Here, we present polymer-inspired metamaterials (PIMs) by programming deformation and strengthening mechanisms that mimic the mechanical roles of key constituent elements in polymer networks. By combining metamaterial programmability with polymer-inspired structures, we design crosslinking, proto-crystalline order, and entanglement in PIMs to enable macroscale strengthening mechanisms inspired by crosslink, molecular-density, and pre-stretch strengthening in polymers, expanding the metamaterial structure-property design space. This macroscale polymer-inspired programmability also suggests that PIMs could serve as a design platform incorporating the programmability strategies to achieve desired deformation and strengthening responses, holding a potential for applications in soft robotic joints and compliant connectors. Subjects: Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2512.16732 [physics.app-ph] (or arXiv:2512.16732v2 [physics.app-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.16732 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Related DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77199-4 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources Submission history From: Zhenyang Gao [ view email ] [v1] Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:30:24 UTC (1,327 KB) [v2] Tue, 12 May 2026 15:02:02 UTC (1,747 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF view license Current browse context: physics.app-ph < prev | next > new | recent | 2025-12 Change to browse by: physics References & Citations SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab)

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