Digital logic gates in soft, conductive mechanical metamaterials

Integrated circuits utilize networked logic gates to compute Boolean logic operations that are the foundation of modern computation and electronics. With the emergence of flexible electronic materials and devices, an opportunity exists to formulate digital logic from compliant, conductive materials. Here, we introduce a general method of leveraging cellular, mechanical metamaterials composed of conductive polymers to realize all digital logic gates and gate assemblies. We establish a method for applying conductive polymer networks to metamaterial constituents and correlate mechanical buckling modes with network connectivity. With this foundation, each of the conventional logic gates is realized in an equivalent mechanical metamaterial, leading to soft, conductive matter that thinks about applied mechanical stress. These findings may advance the growing fields of soft robotics and smart mechanical matter, and may be leveraged across length scales and physics. A method to cultivate decision-making in soft materials would provide a key step to autonomous engineered matter. Here, the authors report a class of conductive polymer-based mechanical metamaterials that process information by digital logic and permit logic gate assembly.

Automated summary

The study introduces a method of leveraging conductive polymer-based mechanical metamaterials to realize various digital logic gates and gate assemblies, providing an important approach for decision-making in soft, conductive materials.