Por Chase Austyn Brisbois (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, USA).

Superparamagnetic nanoparticles are readily manipulated by external magnetic fields, which control the strength and direction of their magnetic dipole moments. Incorporating superparamagnetic nanoparticles into elastic media allows for the precise control of actuating materials through the competition between induced magnetic interactions and elastic bending. In this talk, I will show how sheets of linked, superparamagnetic nanoparticles, or magnetoelastic membranes, buckle and morph in precessing magnetic fields. During rapid precession, switching between different precession angles and field strengths drives the membrane to expand, contract and twist, and break symmetry. At low precession frequencies, dynamic periodic motion is induced in the membrane. I will discuss the inclusion of hydrodynamic interactions into our model and how this is critical for the development ofsoft, autonomous robotic systems on the microscale.