Mechanical memories in solids, from disorder to design

Abstract

Solids are rigid, which means that when left undisturbed, their structures are nearly static. It follows that these structures depend on history -- but it is surprising that they hold readable memories of past events. Here we review the research that has recently flourished around mechanical memory formation, beginning with amorphous solids' various memories of deformation and mesoscopic models based on particle rearrangements. We describe how these concepts apply to a much wider range of solids and glassy matter -- and how they are a bridge to memory and physical computing in mechanical metamaterials. An understanding of memory in all these solids can potentially be the basis for designing or training functionality into materials. Just as important is memory's value for understanding matter whenever it is complex, frustrated, and out of equilibrium.

22 pages, 7 figures. Invited submission to Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, Vol 16

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Geometric control and memory in networks of hysteretic elements
• Spin-glass dynamics: experiment, theory and simulation
• Microstructural and rheological training and memory of nanocolloidal soft glasses under cyclic shear
• Self-organization and memory in an disordered solid subject to random loading
• Geometry-Driven Mechanical Memory in a Random Fibrous Matrix
• Yielding and memory in a driven mean-field model of glasses
• Transients and multiperiodic responses: a hierarchy of material bits
• Memories of amplitude and direction coexist and compete in non-Brownian suspensions