Edd Gent in Singularity Hub:
An octopus’s adaptive camouflage has long inspired materials scientists looking to come up with new cloaking technologies. Now researchers have created a synthetic “skin” that independently shifts its surface patterns and colors like these intelligent invertebrates.
The ability to alter an object’s appearance on demand has a host of applications, from allowing machines to dynamically blend into their surroundings to creating adaptive displays and artwork. Octopuses are an obvious source of inspiration thanks to their unique ability to change the color and physical structure of their skin in just seconds. So far, however, materials scientists have struggled to replicate this dual control. Materials that change color typically use nanostructures to reflect light in specific ways. But changing a surface’s shape interferes with these interactions, making it challenging to tune both properties simultaneously. Now, in a paper published in Nature, Stanford University researchers cracked the problem by creating a synthetic skin made of two independently controlled polymer layers: One changes color and the other shape.
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