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Active Architected Materials
- Supervisors: dr. C. Corentin, dr. E. Lerner, Prof. P. Schall
- Project Type: PhD Position
- Goal: Tailoring artificial systems that combine activity and elastic architecture, and unraveling their emergent collective behaviour.
- Info: Send email to: C.Coulais, P.Schall
- PDF: Click here for PDF
While active fluids consisting of small self-propelling particles have opened very recently a new domain in non-equilibrium physics, their solid counterparts remain completely unexplored. Driven solid architectures have many examples in living matter such as in our own tissues, where molecular motors stiffen and contract biopolymer networks, but their physics remains poorly explored. This project aims at tailoring artificial systems that combine activity and elastic architecture, and unraveling their emergent collective behaviour, e.g. locomotion, shape changes and unusual transport properties.
The project will combine microscopic and macroscopic scale experiments with numerical simulations: the PhD candidate will self-assemble, 3D print and simulate active architected materials, allowing him to bridge from the micron to the centimetre scale and probe the emergence of active elastic instabilities and nonlinear motion.