Shape-Reprogrammable Polymers: Encoding, Erasing, and Re-Encoding (Postprint)

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Abstract : Shape engineering is crucial for controlling the properties and functions of polymers, such as surface roughness, adhesion and wettability, pore size and connection, chirality, and responsiveness towards environmental stimuli, which enable a broad range of applications in microfluidics, tissue engineering, switchable adhesives, soft robotics, optical devices, and reconfigurable metamaterials. Conventional plastic-shaping techniques like molding depend on complementary replication of the geometry from a physical mold. The cost and time associated with tools and machining used in such a one-to-one linear shape-translation processes often increase rapidly with shape complexity. Additive manufacturing, also called three-dimensional (3D) printing, is a layer-by-layer technology for producing 3D objects directly from a digital model. While 3D printing allows the fabrication of increasingly sophisticated structures on demand, the production time scales signifi cantly with object si

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