Synthetic nano-kirigami with high deformability for reconfigurable information displays

Abstract

Abstract Transformable micro/nanostructures endow optical and mechanical metamaterials with customization and tunability. However, employing existing transformation mechanisms to achieve large mechanical deformations remains challenging due to the restricted displacement in the nanometric scale. Here, we present a transformation strategy using nanoscale kirigami structures with ultrahigh deformability enabled by synthetic designs. Theoretically and experimentally reconfigurable large-range and bi-directional out-of-plane deformations are achieved on combined Archimedean spirals with well-designed length, both of which obtain ultrahigh deformability in aspect ratio. Benefited from the ultrahigh deformability, high-performance optical modulation and high-resolution dynamic information display are experimentally achieved, which are well controlled by the spiral angles of synthetic nano-kirigami arrays with a pitch size of only 2.2 μm. Our strategy enables large deformation of nano-kirigami with exceptional tuning accuracy in a large range, which greatly improves the electromechanical reconfigurability for high-precision miniaturized devices and enables potential applications in information encryption, micro-/nano-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS/NOEMS), and photonics/phononics.