Complex pathways and memory in compressed corrugated sheets

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how to experimentally observe and control complex, multi-step pathways in corrugated elastic sheets, revealing their potential for memory encoding and elementary computation through boundary manipulation.

Contribution

It introduces a method to precisely manipulate and analyze complex transition pathways in elastic sheets, uncovering interactions that enable information processing.

Findings

Reproducible, robust multi-step pathways controlled by geometry.

Identification of different pathway types: Preisach, scrambled, and accumulator.

Demonstration of elementary computation using material bits called hysterons.

Abstract

The nonlinear response of driven complex materials -- disordered magnets, amorphous media, crumpled sheets -- features intricate transition pathways where the system repeatedly hops between metastable states. % which encode memory effects. Such pathways encode memory effects and may allow information processing -- yet tools are lacking to experimentally observe and control these pathways, and their full breadth has not been explored. Here we introduce compression of corrugated elastic sheets to precisely observe and manipulate {their full}, multi-step pathways, which are reproducible, robust,and controlled by geometry. We show how manipulation of the boundaries allows to elicit multiple targeted pathways from a single sample. In all cases, each state in the pathway can be encoded by the binary state of material 'bits' called hysterons, and the strength of their interactions plays a crucial role. In particular, as function of increasing interaction strength, we observe Preisach pathways, expected in systems of independently switching hysterons, 'scrambled' pathways that evidence hitherto unexplored interactions between these material bits, and 'accumulator' pathways which leverage these interactions to perform an elementary computation. Our work opens a route to probe, manipulate and understand complex pathways, impacting future applications in soft robotics and information processing in materials.