2016/07/28 by Jason W. Rocks, Nidhi Pashine, Irmgard Bischofberger +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.1612139114
published as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Mar 2017, 114 (10) 2520-2525 · 28 pages (single column), 5 figures, 2 videos
arxiv created 2016/07/28 · arxiv updated 2019/01/04
Recent advances in designing meta-materials have demonstrated that global mechanical properties of disordered spring networks can be tuned by selectively modifying only a small subset of bonds. Here, using a computationally-efficient approach, we extend this idea in order to tune more general properties of networks. With nearly complete success, we are able to produce a strain between any pair of target nodes in a network in response to an applied source strain on any other pair of nodes by removing only ~1% of the bonds. We are also able to control multiple pairs of target nodes, each with a different individual response, from a single source, and to tune multiple independent source/target responses simultaneously into a network. We have fabricated physical networks in macroscopic two- and three-dimensional systems that exhibit these responses. This targeted behavior is reminiscent of the long-range coupled conformational changes that often occur during allostery in proteins. The ease with which we create these responses may give insight into why allostery is a common means for the regulation of activity in biological molecules.