Active solids: percolation and pattern formation

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• Professor Anton Souslov, Dept. of Physics, University of Cambridge
• Friday 07 November 2025, 14:00-15:00
• Oatley 1 Meeting Room, Department of Engineering.

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Active solids consume energy to allow for actuation and shape change not possible in equilibrium. We discover anomalies in the continuum description of non-reciprocal active solids, a ubiquitous class of active materials. In the first half of the talk, I will describe our work on “more is less” [1]: We find that as microscopic activity increases, macroscale active response can vanish below an active percolation transition. In the second half, I will talk about the formation and coarsening of dynamical patterns when active solids undergo instabilities [2]. Our results unveil surprising facets of active matter, offering new principles for engineering materials far from equilibrium.

[1] More is less in unpercolated active solids. Jack Binysh, Guido Baardink, Jonas Veenstra, Corentin Coulais, Anton Souslov. arXiv:2504.18362

[2] Wave coarsening drives time crystallization in active solids. Jonas Veenstra, Jack Binysh, Vito Seinen, Rutger Naber, Damien Robledo-Poisson, Andres Hunt, Wim van Saarloos, Anton Souslov, Corentin Coulais. arXiv:2508.20052

This talk is part of the Engineering - Mechanics and Materials Seminar Series series.

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