Ultrasound-responsive systems as components for smart materials

2022

Article

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Smart materials can respond to stimuli and adapt their response based on external cues from their environments. Such behavior requires a way to transport energy efficiently and then convert it for use in applications like actuation, sensing or signaling. Ultrasound can carry energy safely and with low losses through complex and opaque media. It can be localized to small regions of space and couple to systems over a wide range of timescales. However, the same characteristics that allow ultrasound to propagate efficiently through materials make it difficult to convert acoustic energy into other useful forms. Recent work across diverse fields has begun to address this challenge, demonstrating ultrasonic effects that provide control over physical and chemical systems with surprisingly high specificity. Here, we review recent progress in ultrasound-matter interactions, focusing on effects that can be incorporated as components in smart materials. These techniques build on fundamental phenomena such as cavitation, microstreaming, scattering and acoustic radiation forces to enable capabilities such as actuation, sensing, payload transport and delivery, and the initiation of chemical or biological processes. The diversity of emerging techniques holds great promise for a wide range of smart capabilities supported by ultrasound, and poses interesting questions for further investigations.

@article{2021Thanasi,
  title = {Ultrasound-responsive systems as components for smart materials},
  author = {Athanassiadis, A.G. and Ma, Z. and Moreno-Gomez, N. and Melde, K. and Choi, E. and Goyal, R. and Fischer, P.},
  journal = {Chemical Reviews},
  volume = {122},
  number = {5},
  pages = {5165--5208},
  month = mar,
  year = {2022},
  doi = {10.1021/acs.chemrev.1c00622},
  month_numeric = {3}
}