Shape-morphing systems can be found in many areas, including smart textiles, autonomous robotics, biomedical devices, drug delivery and tissue engineering. The natural analogues of such systems are exemplified by nastic plant motions, where a variety of organs such as tendrils, bracts, leaves and flowers respond to environmental stimuli (such as humidity, light or touch) by varying internal turgor, which leads to dynamic conformations governed by the tissue composition and microstructural anisotropy of cell walls. Inspired by these botanical systems, we printed composite hydrogel architectures that are encoded with localized, anisotropic swelling behaviour controlled by the alignment of cellulose fibrils along prescribed four-dimensional printing pathways. When combined with a minimal theoretical framework that allows us to solve the inverse problem of designing the alignment patterns for prescribed target shapes, we can programmably fabricate plant-inspired architectures that change shape on immersion in water, yielding complex three-dimensional morphologies.

The homotopy theory of topological defects is a powerful tool for organizing and unifying many ideas across a broad range of physical systems. Recently, experimental progress has been made in controlling and measuring colloidal inclusions in liquid crystalline phases. The topological structure of these systems is quite rich but, at the same time, subtle. Motivated by experiment and the power of topological reasoning, we review and expound upon the classification of defects in uniaxial nematic liquid crystals. Particular attention is paid to the ambiguities that arise in these systems, which have no counterpart in the much-storied XY model or the Heisenberg ferromagnet.

We report on a simple yet robust method to produce orientationally modulated two-dimensional patterns with sub-100 nm features over cm2 regions via a solvent-induced swelling instability of an elastomeric film with micrometer-scale perforations. The dramatic reduction of feature size ( approximately 10 times) is achieved in a single step, and the process is reversible and repeatable without the requirement of delicate surface preparation or chemistry. By suspending ferrous and other functional nanoparticles in the solvent, we have faithfully printed the emergent patterns onto flat and curved substrates. We model this elastic instability in terms of elastically interacting "dislocation dipoles" and find complete agreement between the theoretical ground-state and the observed pattern. Our understanding allows us to manipulate the structural details of the membrane to tailor the elastic distortions and generate a variety of nanostructures.

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