Composite materials with controllable macromechanical properties based on MEMS-assisted structural manipulation of low-dimensional subcomponents

We report an approach to achieve composite materials with wide-ranging macroscale mechanical properties through the three-dimensional structural manipulation of low-dimensional subcomponents. Such composites could be useful in MEMS actuators based on highly compliant mechanisms, or in mechanical metamaterials with highly anisotropic mechanical properties (e.g., negative Poisson ratio). The presented composites possess a multilayer structure comprising alternating high modulus and low modulus subcomponent materials (i.e., permalloy (Ni80Fe20) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomer), within which lithographically-patterned pores are present. By controlling the pore geometries/orientations and the individual metal/elastomer layer thicknesses in the microscale, in-plane and out-of-plane mechanical properties (i.e., tensile and bending moduli) are substantially tailored.