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Dynamically tunable surface textures offer a powerful route to spatiotemporally regulate surface and interfacial properties, enabling emerging applica- tions ranging from adaptive optics to soft robotic manipulation. However, achieving programmable, reversible, and spatiotemporal modulation of sur- face texture remains a fundamental challenge. Here, we present a photothermal-actuated liquid crystal elastomer bilayer that enables reversible, on-demand spatiotemporal modulation of surface textures through dynamically emerging and propagating wrinkles. Using direct laser writing or pro- jected light elds, programmable and self-erasable wrinkle patterns are generated for dynamic information encoding. This spatiotemporal wrinkling enables object manipulation across diverse geometries, including uphill transport and navigation along predesigned paths. By coupling wrinkle-driven motion with thermally reversible dynamic bonding, the bilayer further enables assembly and disassembly of dynamic polymers, as well as cargo transporta- tion. This work demonstrates spatiotemporally programmable wrinkling as a powerful mechanism for dynamic modulation of surface textures, establishing a versatile platform for multifunctional and recon gurable smart surfaces. 

Achieving tunable acoustic properties is crucial for adaptive sound regulation in dynamically changing environments across engineering and biomedical applications. However, conventional porous materials possess fixed pore structures that result in static acoustic responses, while existing active systems often rely on complex, bulky, and multi-component assemblies that limit practical integration. Here, we present a porous liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) as a structurally simple yet highly reconfigurable material platform enabling wide-range acoustic tuning. By exploiting reversible, thermal-driven reconfiguration of its pore structure, the porous LCE achieves full-range modulation of sound absorption, transitioning from near-zero to near-perfect absorption at target frequencies, while enabling frequency-selective tuning through on-demand shifts of absorption peaks. Experiments combined with numerical modeling reveal that this tunability originates from temperature-controlled changes in effective porosity and pore size, which can be systematically programmed during fabrication. Importantly, the acoustic performance is highly reversible and repeatable over multiple heating and cooling cycles, ensuring robust and reliable operation. This work establishes porous LCEs as a promising material platform for active acoustic wave manipulation, with various potential applications, including adaptive noise control, acoustic imaging, and wireless communication. 

Reconfigurable mechanical systems enable precise programmable control over structural properties, expanding opportunities in architected materials, adaptive devices, and multifunctional structures. Here, we introduce elastic rod origami (RodOri), a platform that exploits remarkably simple elements—prestressed, naturally curved rods—into a system with an extraordinary degree of multistability and configurational richness. For example, a single six-rod RodOri unit can easily access 11 distinct configurations, far exceeding the reconfigurability of conventional origami or general mechanical reconfigurable systems. Individual rods, constrained under clamped boundary conditions, undergo transitions between discrete morphologies whose strain energy and stiffness are precisely prescribed by their natural curvature. Assembling these rods into modular multirod architectures yields metamaterials with numerous stable configurations that can be selectively and reversibly programmed. This configurational diversity enables tunable static stiffness and nonlinear force response, thus enabling tunable dynamic behaviors such as vibration filtering, wave propagation switching, and mode conversion within a single, easily manufactured platform. By leveraging curvature-induced mechanical instability, RodOri unlocks highly programmable static and dynamic mechanical behavior, offering tailorable design strategies for reconfigurable structures, soft robotics, medical devices, and adaptive materials. 

ABSTRACT Modern engineering systems increasingly operate under varying vibrational environments, necessitating structural components capable of adapting their dynamic responses on demand. While springs have long served as the core of vibration control systems, their fixed stiffness fundamentally limits adaptability. Here, we introduce reconfigurable springs based on the structural instability of rod origami (RodOri), constructed from pre‐stressed, naturally curved elastic rods. By tailoring the natural curvature and cross‐sectional aspect ratio of the constituent rods, both the onset of snap‐through buckling and the post‐buckling response of individual RodOri springs can be systematically programmed. Leveraging this geometric programmability, we establish a system‐level design principle in which multiple RodOri springs of identical length but distinct buckling behaviors are assembled into a multistable metamaterial. Differences in snapping displacements enable stepwise structural reconfiguration via sequential snap‐through transitions, while variations in post‐snapping stiffness govern the mechanical response of each configuration. This hierarchical tunability enables both broad and fine control of resonance frequencies and dynamic responses across stable states. Numerical simulations and experiments demonstrate on‐demand modulation of vibration amplification, isolation, and impact mitigation within a single metamaterial, establishing RodOri springs as reconfigurable, programmable building blocks for adaptive structural and wave dynamics. 

ABSTRACT Ring origami, consisting of closed‐loop rods, can realize diverse shape‐morphing behaviors, including 2D‐to‐1D, 2D‐to‐2D, and 2D‐to‐3D transformations, by harnessing snap‐buckling instability. To broaden its application potential in areas such as deployable aerospace structures, soft robotics, and reconfigurable metamaterials, a programmable design framework is highly desired. In this work, we develop a unified framework for the forward prediction and inverse design of ring origami by integrating Kirchhoff rod theory with a physics‐informed neural network. The framework can identify the stable states of various segmented rings (e.g., square and hexagonal rings) composed of rod segments with prescribed constant or varying natural curvature (i.e., curvature in the stress‐free state). By introducing an additional shape‐matching loss, the framework can also determine the natural curvature profile of segmented rings required to achieve stable configurations that can be confined within a target spatial domain or conform to a target curved surface. Its generality and robustness are further demonstrated by extending it to 3D rod systems. This work establishes a powerful strategy for the programmable design of elastic rod systems exemplified by ring origami and opens new opportunities for functional applications that demand shape‐morphing structures with simple geometries, high packing capability, and prescribed stable configurations. 

Certain cephalopods can dynamically camouflage by altering both skin texture and color to match their surroundings. Inspired by this capability, we present a cholesteric liquid crystal elastomer-liquid crystal elastomer (CLCE-LCE) bilayer capable of simultaneous, reversible modulation of surface texture and structural color through programmable wrinkling. By tuning the bilayer’s fabrication parameters, on-demand wrinkle morphologies and color combinations are achieved. Spatially selective ultraviolet (UV) curing allows localized surface textures, while chemical patterning of the CLCE layer enables region-specific color responses, expanding the design space for multifunctional, spatially encoded optical materials. The CLCE-LCE bilayer enables dynamic thermal regulation by tuning light absorption through synergistically modulating surface morphology and color. Notably, this system achieves strain-dependent multistate encoding via multistep selective UV curing, revealing distinct visual content under different applied strains. This work establishes a versatile platform that merges surface instabilities with tunable structural coloration, advancing intelligent materials with programmable, strain-responsive surface and optical properties. 

ABSTRACT Electromagnetic (EM) fields have been used in technologies such as communication, imaging, and energy transfer. In recent years, there has been growing interest in exploiting EM fields for the actuation of functional materials, enabling applications in soft robotics, biomedical devices, active metamaterials, and shape‐morphing systems. These materials are often composites that incorporate EM‐responsive components, granting them a remarkable versatility in responsiveness. Specifically, EM fields can induce actuation through static magnetic force and torque, Lorentz forces, or thermal effects via eddy currents and magnetic hysteresis losses. In addition, EM fields can be harnessed for sensing, wireless communication, and power transfer, extending their role far beyond actuation. The coexistence of such diverse mechanisms makes EM one of the most powerful and integrative external stimuli for multifunctional materials. This review provides the first holistic overview of EM‐active material systems. We systematically organize recent progress in EM‐based actuation, sensing, communication, and wireless power transfer, highlighting the fundamental principles, experimental demonstrations, and emerging design strategies. Approaches that integrate multiple EM‐driven functionalities and the role of optimization and machine learning in advancing design and control are discussed. By consolidating these advances, this review establishes a roadmap for the development of next‐generation EM‐enabled intelligent materials and devices. 

Abstract Active metamaterials are a type of metamaterial with tunable properties enabled by structural reconfigurations. Existing active metamaterials often achieve only a limited number of structural reconfigurations upon the application of an external load across the entire structure. Here, a selective actuation strategy is proposed for inhomogeneous deformations of magneto‐mechanical metamaterials, which allows for the integration of multiple elastic wave‐tuning functionalities into a single metamaterial design. Central to this actuation strategy is that a magnetic field is applied to specific unit cells instead of the entire metamaterial, and the unit cell can transform between two geometrically distinct shapes, which exhibit very different mechanical responses to elastic wave excitations. The numerical simulations and experiments demonstrate that the tunable response of the unit cell, coupled with inhomogeneous deformation achieved through selective actuation, unlocks multifunctional capabilities of magneto‐mechanical metamaterials such as tunable elastic wave transmittance, elastic waveguide, and vibration isolation. The proposed selective actuation strategy offers a simple but effective way to control the tunable properties and thus enhances the programmability of magneto‐mechanical metamaterials, which also expands the application space of magneto‐mechanical metamaterials in elastic wave manipulation.