Dynamic diagnosis of metamaterials through laser-induced vibrational signatures.

Mechanical metamaterials at the microscale exhibit exotic static properties owing to their engineered building blocks, but their dynamic properties have remained substantially less explored. Their design principles can target frequency-dependent properties and resilience under high-strain-rate deformation, making them versatile materials for applications in lightweight impact resistance, acoustic waveguiding or vibration damping. However, accessing dynamic properties at small scales has remained a challenge owing to low-throughput and destructive characterization or lack of existing testing protocols.

Tunable Mechanical Response of Self-Assembled Nanoparticle Superlattices.

Self-assembled nanoparticle superlattices (NPSLs) are an emergent class of self-architected nanocomposite materials that possess promising properties arising from precise nanoparticle ordering. Their multiple coupled properties make them desirable as functional components in devices where mechanical robustness is critical. However, questions remain about NPSL mechanical properties and how shaping them affects their mechanical response.

Phase Change Dispersion Made by Condensation-Emulsification.

Cooling processes require heat transfer fluids with high specific heat capacity. For cooling processes below 0 °C, water has to be diluted with organic liquids to prevent freezing, with the undesired effect of reduced specific heat capacity. Phase change dispersions, PCDs, consist of a phase change material, PCM, being dispersed in a continuous phase.

Enhancing the Injectability of High Concentration Drug Formulations Using Core Annular Flows.

Highly concentrated biological drug formulations would offer tremendous benefits to global health, yet they cannot be manually injected using commercial syringes and needles due to their high viscosities. Current approaches to address this problem face several challenges such as crosscontamination, high cost, needle clogging, and protein inactivation. This work reports a simple method to enhance formulation injectability using a core annular flow, where the transport of highly viscous fluids through a needle is enabled by coaxial lubrication by a less viscous fluid.