Mechanical Metamaterials Block Symmetry of Motion

Engineers and scientists at the University of Texas at Austin and the AMOLF institute in the Netherlands have invented mechanical metamaterials that easily transfer motion in one direction while blocking it in the other. The material can be thought of as a mechanical one-way shield that blocks energy from coming in but transmits it going out the other side. The researchers developed the nonreciprocal mechanical materials using metamaterials, which are synthetic materials with properties that cannot be found in nature.