The ability to control the organization of matter across multiple length scales presents exciting opportunities for designing materials with emergent properties. My research focuses on the fundamental role of geometry and topology in directing the assembly and physical properties of materials, enabling the creation of systems with tailored optical and mechanical behavior. During my Ph.D., I developed a geometry-driven framework for the programmable assembly of colloidal crystals, integrating particle shape with predictive crystallographic principles to build nanoscale architectures from the bottom up. This approach unlocked new strategies for constructing optical metamaterials with tunable and dynamic light-matter interactions. In my postdoctoral work, I extended these design principles to macroscale mechanical metamaterials, introducing polycatenated architected materials (PAMs): a new class of interlocked 3D lattice structures fabricated via additive manufacturing. PAMs offer exceptional mechanical responses, including tunable stiffness, reconfigurability, and adaptive behavior, addressing long-standing challenges in mechanical design. These properties make PAMs promising candidates for deployable aerospace structures, soft robotics, and impact-resistant systems. In this seminar, I will discuss how a geometry-driven design philosophy provides a unifying framework for the discovery, synthesis, and manufacturing of next-generation materials, bridging fundamental principles with practical applications in mechanics and photonics.

Bio:

Wenjie Zhou is a postdoctoral scholar in Mechanical and Civil Engineering at Caltech, working with Prof. Chiara Daraio on the computational design and additive manufacturing of architected materials. His current research focuses on developing polycatenated architected materials (PAMs) and granular soft robotics for applications in aerospace, robotics, and impact-resistant systems. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry as a Ryan Fellow at Northwestern University under Prof. Chad A. Mirkin, where he pioneered the geometry-driven assembly of colloidal crystals, enabling complex optical metamaterials through DNA-mediated assembly and predictive crystallography. His work has resulted in multiple first-author publications in Science, Nature, and Nature Materials, along with many awards, including the MRS Graduate Student Gold Award, Northwestern Excellence in Graduate Research Award, and IPMI Bright Futures Award.