Metamaterials with conformational nonlinearity
  Within a decade of fruitful developments, metamaterials became a prominent area of research, bridging theoretical and applied electrodynamics, electrical engineering and material science. Being man-made structures, metamaterials offer a particularly useful playground to develop novel interdisciplinary concepts. Here we demonstrate a novel principle in metamaterial assembly which integrates electromagnetic, mechanical, and thermal responses within their elements. Through these mechanisms, the conformation of the meta-molecules changes, providing a dual mechanism for nonlinearity and offering nonlinear chirality. Our proposal opens a wide road towards further developments of nonlinear metamaterials and photonic structures, adding extra flexibility to their design and control. 
Mikhail Lapine, Ilya V. Shadrivov, David A. Powell, Yuri S. Kivshar
physics.optics