🧠 This carbon nanotube foam remembers exactly how it was squeezed — like a hard drive, but mechanical.
A new paper shows the first clean case of return point memory in a soft, elastic material, driven by nanoscale friction between nanotubes:
go.aps.org/4h8P0Nq
ALT A two-part figure. At left: a 3D illustration of a cylindrical test rig with a teal cylindrical sample labeled "Precompressed VACNT" at the base, compressed between metal plates, a dark green arrow pointing downward onto the top plate. At right: a teal dotted-line graph plotting shifted stress labeled σ–σs on the y-axis, from -0.4 to 0.4, against shifted strain labeled ε–εs on the x-axis, from -5 to 5. The curve forms a large outer loop with a smaller loop inside it, with arrows pointing at them labeled "Sub-loops."