Reprogrammable multistable ribbon kirigami with a wide cut

Abstract

Upon stretching, a ribbon kirigami with parallel major cuts exhibits multistable behaviors that can maintain at multiple stable configurations. This work investigates the phenomena of a ribbon kirigami with one of the major cuts replaced by a wide cut, of which the multistable behaviors of the wide-cut located cell, the stable configurations, and the energy barriers between the stable configurations are explored. It is observed that the introduction of the wide cut results in local symmetry breaking, enabling bidirectional transition of the stable configurations in such a kirigami. The results also reveal that the geometries of major cuts and the stretch level enable reprogramable dynamic behaviors, such as the number of transitions once triggered. A kirigami-Morse code system is hereby presented, utilizing dynamic reconfiguration and showing a refreshable mechanical readout utilizing reprogrammability. The kirigami has potential for developing metamaterials with unique dynamic features.