Mechanics in functional materials

Our knowledge of deformation behaviour in functional materials is pushing the frontiers of mechanics, informing design strategies and enabling scalable manufacturing.

Fracture behaviours and related atomic-scale phenomena of van der Waals materials are elucidated through the use of electron microscopy, which highlights the important role of interlayer coupling and re-bonding, providing valuable insights for engineering mechanical properties of layered materials and structures.

Bulk inorganic semiconductors can show remarkable plasticity and extensibility, defying their inherent brittleness and enabling opportunities in advanced semiconductor manufacturing and processing.

Fracture behaviours in multilayer h-BN, involving interlayer-friction toughening and edge-reconstruction embrittlement, are identified through in situ experiments and theoretical analyses.

Intrinsic toughening in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides can be achieved simply by twisting the layers. This twisting promotes cross-layer healing and grain boundary formation, which shield fracture tips from stress concentration.

Sublattice amorphization is revealed as the deformation mechanism of Ag₂Te_1–xS_x (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.6), based on which an iterative crystalline–amorphous transition strategy is proposed to enable these bulk inorganic semiconductors with metal-like processability.

The authors show that bulk brittle semiconductors can be plastically manufactured like metals by warm metalworking into free-standing, metre-scale films with decent physical properties.