Despite the prevalence of synthetic materials across different industries and scientific fields, most are developed to serve a limited set of functions. To address this inflexibility, researchers at Penn State, led by Hongtao Sun, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering (IME), have developed a fabrication method that can print multifunctional “smart synthetic skin”—configurable materials that can be used to encrypt or decrypt information, enable adaptive camouflage, power soft robotics and more.
Octopus-inspired ‘smart skin’ uses 4D printing to morph on cue
