Elasticity in materials is a phenomenon that provides a basis for widespread practical applications in engineering, medicine, and electronics. Most of the conventional materials can withstand only small deformations within the elastic limit, typically below 5% of their original size. Here, we report a graphene aerogel made of covalently cross-linked graphene sheets that exhibits anomalous superelastic behavior up to 92% of compressive and 68% tensile strain. We show that the graphene aerogel has a nonlinear stress-strain characteristic with the compressive and tensile yield strength of 4.5 GPa and 0.6 MPa, respectively. By considering the elastic bending of graphene sheets and buckle folding of pore walls, we develop a quantitative origami model that describes the stress-strain behavior of the aerogel. In addition, we analyze the mechanical oscillations of the graphene aerogel, observing superfast vibration damping within a time scale of 50–250 ns. Our study demonstrates the unusual coexistence of superelasticity and superfast damping within a cellular material with atomically thin pore walls, a phenomenon that does not occur in bulk elastic materials described by Hook’s law.

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Having full control of light propagation in free space represents the ultimate goal for an imaging system. Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs), featuring the ability to actively control the spatial distribution of light components, are usually limited either to performing small and continuous adjustments to imaging aberrations or to rapidly shifting discrete segments of the wavefront with severe diffraction artifacts. Here a photothermally modulated optical structure is introduced as a highly responsive SLM capable of producing arbitrarily shaped wavefront patterns with smooth as well as step‐like features. The phase‐shift inducing temperature profile within the plasmonic metamaterial at the core of the SLM structure replicates closely the pattern of illuminating light intensity avoiding the common speed and spatial gradient limitations. As a result, the SLM concept is insensitive to polarization, free of diffraction artifacts, and offers sub‐millisecond response time and high transmittance >80%. The dynamic generation of a set of common optical functions is demonstrated, including low‐order Zernike polynomials patterns, phase grating, or vortex, which build an essential phase modulation toolbox across different imaging applications.