Mechanical Energy Metamaterials in Interstellar Travel

Progress in Materials Science 137 (2023) 101132
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Progress in Materials Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pmatsci
Mechanical energy metamaterials in interstellar travel

Pengcheng Jiao *
Institute of Port, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zhoushan 316021, Zhejiang, China
Donghai Laboratory, Zhoushan, Zhejiang 316021, China
Hainan Institute of Zhejiang University, Sanya 572025, Hainan, China
Engineering Research Center of Oceanic Sensing Technology and Equipment, Zhejiang University, Ministry of Education, China
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Nanoscale spacecrafts have shed light on an audacious but promising vision for interstellar travel
Mechanical energy metamaterials to neighboring planets beyond the solar system. The nanocrafts can be accelerated to a significant
Mechanical functional metamaterials fraction of light speed, which leads to the possibility of completing the otherwise millennia space
Interstellar travel
missions using the current rocket propulsion technology in several decades. However, electrical
energy is a severe challenge for long-term interstellar travel. Mechanical energy metamaterials
have been proposed as a promising technology integrated multiscale architected structures with
energy materials, which have opened an exciting venue for energy harvesting under extreme
conditions such as the cosmic environment. Mechanical energy metamaterials are envisioned as
an alternative energy solution to address the power issue of nanocrafts in interstellar travel. Here,
this article comprehensively overviews the debut and development of mechanical energy meta
materials and discusses the potential and application paradigm for energy harvesting in the
cosmic environment. We first clarify the main feature and functionality of mechanical meta
materials and summarize the recent findings on typical mechanical energy metamaterials. Next,
we identify the characteristics and challenges of the cosmic environment, deliberate the funda
mental energy issue of interstellar travel, and examine the stringent criteria to design mechanical
energy metamaterial nanosails for electrical power. Discussion indicates that kinetic energy
resulted in cosmic dust grains collision and photovoltaic energy from starlight can be the main
energy sources for mechanical energy metamaterials. In the end, we propose the applications of
mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails in the nano space energy systems (nano-SES) to
address the energy challenges in interstellar travel by generating electrical power from the kinetic
and photovoltaic energies.
1. Introduction
The history of human civilization has involved with, and thus been affected by, the development of tools. During a fairly long time
period in human history, tools are mainly made by natural materials such as stone, wood, metal, etc. [1]. The mechanical charac
teristics of those natural materials are, however, severely limited in specific ranges [2]. More critically, natural materials typically have
to face the trade-off challenge between physical properties and mechanical performance [3], e.g., the Young’s modulus of naturally
* Address: Institute of Port, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Ocean College, Zhejiang University, Zhoushan 316021, Zhejiang, China.
E-mail address: pjiao@zju.edu.cn.
URL: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hL27vCkAAAAJ&hl=ja&oi=ao0000-0002-9577-3828.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmatsci.2023.101132
Received 6 August 2021; Received in revised form 29 March 2023; Accepted 13 April 2023
Available online 23 April 2023
0079-6425/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P. Jiao Progress in Materials Science 137 (2023) 101132
Nomenclature
AU Astronomical units
C Charge
Δ Displacement
F External force
J Joule (kgm2/s2)
K− Negative stiffness of material
K Stiffness of material
M Mass
nm Nanometer (10− 9 m)
Pdensity Peak power density
pm Picometer (10− 12 m)
R0 Initial resistance
Scomp Compressive strength
δ Strain
Stensile Tensile strength
TWh Terawatt per hour
B Bulk modulus
ρ Density
E Young’s modulus
G Shear modulus
Keq Equilibrium stiffness of material
K+ Positive stiffness of material
K Temperature in Kelvin scale
µm Micrometer (10− 6 m)
P Peak power
Pvolgate Peak voltage
v Poisson’s ratio
ΔR Resistance variation
Sflex Flexural strength
σ Stress
Tc Curie temperature
c Light speed
Mechanical metamaterials and functional materials

AMM Adaptive mechanical metamaterials
MPM Mechanical piezoelectric metamaterials
NIM Negative index metamaterials
RUM Rigid unit mode
SMPs Shape memory polymers
LCEs Liquid crystal elastomers
MTM Mechanical triboelectric metamaterials
PMM Programmable mechanical metamaterials
SMMs Shape memory materials
Materials
ABS Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene
Ag–Zn Silver-zinc
Am241 Americium-241
Au Gold
BaTiO3 Barium titanate
CdTe Cadmium telluride
CFX Fluorinated carbon
CNS Branched carbon nanotubes
c-Si Crystalline silicon
DC Diethyl carbonate
EC Elastomer-carbon
GaAs Gallium arsenide
GeS Germanium sulfide
2
GNS Graphene nanoplatelets

gPLA Glycerolized PLA
HEP N-(2-Hydroxyethyl)-2-Pyrrolidone
IE Ion-exchanged
Li Lithium
LiAlCl4 Lithium tetrachloroaluminate
LiBr Lithium bromide
Li-ion Lithium ion
LiPF6 Lithium hexafluorophosphate
Li-SOCl2 Lithium thionyl chloride
MoSe2 Molybdenum diselenide
Ni-Cd Nickel-cadmium
NR Natural rubber
PC Propylene carbonate
PDMS Polydimethylsiloxane
PFA Perfluoroalkoxy
PLA Polylactic acid
PMMA Polymethyl methacrylate
PU Polyurethane
PVC Polyvinyl chloride
PVDF-TrFE Poly(trifluoroethylene)
S-NR Segregated natural rubber
SO2 Sulfur dioxide
SS Solid-state
TPU Thermoplastic polyurethane
Ag Silver
Al2O3 Alumina
a-Si Amorphous silicon
AuNPs Gold nanoparticles
BTO Barium titanate
CEC Conductive elastomer composites
CNC Cellulose nanocrystal
CNT Multi-walled carbon nanotubes
CuInSe2 Indium diselenide
DME Dimethoxyethane
FEP Fluorinated ethylene propylene
GBL γ-butyrolactone
GeSe Germanium selenide
GO Graphene oxide
HDDA Hexanediol diacrylate
H-NR Homogenous natural rubber
LCO Lithium cobalt oxide
Li2O4S2 Lithium dithionate
LiBF4 Lithium tetrafluoroborate
Li-CFx Lithium-carbon monofluoride
LiNbO3 Lithium niobate
Li-SO2 Lithium sulfur dioxide
LiTaO3 Lithium tantalite
Ni63 Nickel-63
Ni-H2 Nickel-hydrogen
PA11 Polyamide 11
PCL Polycaprolactone
PET Polyethylene terephthalate
PhC Photonic crystal
PLA-CB Polylactic acid with carbon black
PTFE Polytetrafluoroethylene
Pu238 Plutonium-238
PVDF Polyvinylidene fluoride
PZT Lead zirconate titanate
SnS Tin(II) sulfide
SOCl2 Liquid thionyl chloride
3
TiO2 Titanium dioxide

Zn-HgO Zinc-mercury oxide
Energy harvesting
AC Alternating current
DC Direct current
MEMS Micro-electromechanical systems
Nano-SES Nanoscale space energy systems
PENG Piezoelectric nanogenerators
TPP Two-photon polymerization
CVD Chemical vapor deposition
ME Melt electrospinning
MOCVD Metal-organic chemical vapor deposition
NEMS Nano-electromechanical systems
TENG Triboelectric nanogenerators
Advanced manufacturing technology

AM Additive manufacturing
DLC Direct laser cutting
IMP Interplanetary monitoring platform
TPL Two-photon lithography
ALD Atomic layer deposition
FIB Focused ion beam
IUS Inertial upper stage
Artificial intelligence
AI Artificial intelligence
DL Deep learning
GRL Deep reinforcement learning
MAE Mean absolute error
PBE Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhoff
R2 Explained variance
SDE Standard deviation of error
ANN Artificial neutral networks
GAN Generative adversarial networks
HSE06 Heyd-Scuseria-Ernzerhof
ML Machine learning
R Coefficient of correlation
RMSE Root mean squared error
LSTM RNN Long-short term memory recurrent neural network
Computational science
DFT Density functional theory
MD Molecular dynamics
FMA Finite element analysis
Space agency
CNSA China national space administration
NASA National aeronautics and space administration
ESA European space agency
Others
1D One dimensional
3D Three dimensional
GCR Galactic cosmic rays
NIR Near infrared
NRI Negative reflective index
2D Two dimensional
FIR Far infrared
NAC Negative area compressibility
NLC Negative linear compressibility
ROC Receiver operating characteristics
4
cellular materials was reported as an exponential function of their density or porosity [4]. These limitations result in the obstacles in
the analysis and application of natural materials. Therefore, it is of desire to develop artificial materials that can be controlled to
expand the limitations of the physical and mechanical properties in natural materials [5-7]. Mechanical metamaterials have been
reported as the architected, structural materials that are periodically assembled by microstructural units to exhibit extraordinary
mechanical characteristics [8-10]. Fig. 1 demonstrates the principle of mechanical metamaterials with respect to the formation. The
formation levels of mechanical metamaterials can be conceptually characterized as electrons, atoms, material and structure, which fall
into the research fields of physics, materials and structures, respectively. The electronic and atomic level scaled from pm to nm in
vestigates the nature of materials and explains the essential reasons for the significant diversity in materials, the material level from nm
to µm determines the fundamental characteristics of materials and explores the property limits by discovering new materials, and the
structural level consists of the unit phase from µm to mm and overall phase from mm to m. The unit phase refers to the foundation of
mechanical metamaterials (i.e., periodically assembled, microstructural units), and the overall phase is the composition of the units to
obtain the entire mechanical metamaterials [11-13]. The localized behavior of mechanical metamaterials at the unit phase is structure-
like and that of the overall phase is similar to homogenous materials [19,20]. As a consequence, mechanical metamaterials are
characterized between the natural materials that are based on the intrinsic properties of materials and the manmade structures that are
mainly affected by the structural characteristics [17,18]. Mechanical metamaterials are significantly dependent on their units, and
therefore, the tunability of the former can be induced by rationally tailoring the latter, which leads to the possibility of obtaining
mechanical metamaterials with desirable mechanical properties [14-16].
Studies have been conducted to design mechanical metamaterials in the unit and overall phases at the structural level, such that to
obtain the metamaterials with different overall configurations [21-25], unprecedented physical and mechanical properties such as
negative Poisson’s ratio [26-30] and negative stiffness [32-34], and functionalities [36,37]. Recent research interests of mechanical
metamaterials have been shifted to using functional materials at the material level to explore the advanced functionalities, such as
energy materials for electrical power generation [38], energy absorption [39-41] and energy storage [42]; thermal materials for
thermophotovoltaic [43,596], thermomechanical [44] and thermoelastic [45,46] responses; and magnetic materials for electro
magnetic energy harvesting [47-49,597,598] and absorption [50,51], etc. Rapid development of mechanical metamaterials with
extraordinary mechanical characteristics [57-60] and energy materials with promising electrical performance (e.g., energy harvesting
[52,53] and energy absorption [54-56]) have led to the future direction of advanced energy metamaterials [61,62,64-66]. Fig. 2
Fig. 1. Principle of mechanical metamaterials with respect to the formation. Conceptual formation levels of mechanical metamaterials from
electrons, atoms, material to structure and their corresponding research fields in physics, materials and structures, respectively. The electronic and
atomic level studies the nature of materials, the material level determines the fundamental characteristics of materials, and the structural level has
the unit phase that designs the foundation of mechanical metamaterials and the overall phase that focuses on the composition of the microstructural
units to obtain the entire mechanical metamaterials.
5
Fig. 2. Research interests and search trends of energy metamaterials and mechanical metamaterials. (a) Research interests over time in
Google and (b) numbers of publications that have the keywords of energy metamaterials or mechanical metamaterials in their titles or abstracts over
the time period of 2013–2021.
investigates the research interests on the keywords of energy metamaterials and mechanical metamaterials over the time period of
2013–2021. Fig. 2(a) summarizes the search interests and overall trends obtained in Google [67] and Fig. 2(b) presents the numbers of
publications that contain the keywords in their titles or abstracts. The research fields of mechanical metamaterials and energy met
amaterials have experienced a booming development in the last decade. Table 1 lists the existing studies of mechanical metamaterials,
energy metamaterials and mechanical energy metamaterials in the categories of mechanism or characteristics, technology or appli
cation, and review or perspective articles.
Mechanical energy metamaterials, designing energy materials in mechanical metamaterials at the material level, have been re
ported with promising mechanical properties, well excitation sensitivity and enhanced electrical performance [76-78], which have
opened an exciting venue for energy harvesting under various excitations (e.g., mechanical wave [68], acoustic sources [70-72]) and
energy absorption and dissipation [73-75]. Referring to the formation levels of mechanical metamaterials illustrated in Fig. 1, me
chanical energy metamaterials can be obtained at the material and structural levels. The material level can be explained by discovering
new energy materials to explore the electromechanical characteristics, and the structural level is related to applying or growing energy
materials in the unit phase such that to obtain mechanical energy metamaterials in the overall phase (e.g., piezoelectric materials in the
6
Table 1
Existing studies of mechanical metamaterials, energy metamaterials and mechanical energy metamaterials in the categories of mechanism or
characteristics, technology or application, and review or perspective articles.
Mechanism or Technology or Review or
characteristics application perspective articles
Mechanical [4,12,19,21,22,23,32,34,37,86,136,141,143,167,170,172, [54,56,65,74,144,253,257,269,270, [1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,13,14,

metamaterials 174,177,178,191,193,197,209,210,213,219,221,223,254, 282,299,343,463,471,487] 16,17,18,20,59,132,133,134,
261,300,317,318,319,322,325,327,328,332,333,338,350, 163,264,329,488,496,498]
351,426,427,428]
Energy materials [90,118,120,280,92,93,117,119,121,285,286,353,355, [226,301,258,288,302,304,383,414], [1,46,62,95,122,359,377]
378,379,380,384,409,493]
Mechanical energy [40,47,48,53,68,70,71,72,79,80,81,85,123,125, [64,82,83,84,87,88,115,124,126,127, [52,498]
metamaterials 146,147,272,273,279,283,382] 263,265,266,342,354]
plate mechanical metamaterials [81-83] and metastructures [79,80], or triboelectric materials in the origami metamaterials [84],
lattice metamaterials [85] and cellular metamaterials [86-88]). Based on the electromechanical characteristics, energy materials (e.g.,
piezoelectric [83,113-115], triboelectric [116,117] or photovoltaic materials [43]) and energy devices (e.g., piezoelectric nano
generators PENG [118,119] and triboelectric nanogenerators TENG [120-122]) have been developed to generate electrical power in
various working scenarios. Fig. 3 demonstrates the principles, mechanisms and power management systems of piezoelectric, tribo
electric and photovoltaic materials [89]. Fig. 3(a) indicates the energy harvesting principle and mechanism of piezoelectric materials
in the deformation process of initial, deforming, maximum deforming and releasing under mechanical excitations [90]. Fig. 3(b) il
lustrates triboelectric materials that are deformed in the contact-separation, single-electrode, lateral-sliding and freestanding modes
[91-93]. Fig. 3(c) presents photovoltaic materials in the initial, light and fading processes under light radiations [61]. Fig. 3(d) il
lustrates the power management systems of energy materials that are designed with the five modules of rectifier, DC-DC converter,
storage capacitor, high frequency filter and external load. The rectifier module is designed with rectifier bridge and capacitor to
convert the AC signal generated by the power device into pulsating DC signal. The DC-DC converter module is designed with a buck or
Fig. 3. Principles, mechanisms and power management systems of typical energy materials. Energy harvesting principles and mechanisms of
(a) piezoelectric materials in the deformation process of initial, deforming, maximum deforming and releasing under mechanical excitations, (b)
triboelectric materials in the contact-separation, single-electrode, lateral-sliding and freestanding modes, and (c) photovoltaic materials in the
initial, light and fading processes under light radiations. (d) Power management systems of the energy materials that are designed with the five
modules of rectifier, DC-DC converter, storage capacitor, high frequency filter and external load.
7
buck-boost converter circuit to suppress the harmonic input component. The storage capacitor is used to harvest the DC signal and
supply electrical power to the external load when the circuit is running in a steady-state.
Mechanical energy metamaterials have been proposed for energy harvesting in the extreme conditions that are of difficulty to
generate electrical power using traditional approaches such as the cosmic environment in space exploration [94-96]. Space explo
ration, taking advantage of the rapid development of the aerospace technology, has been considered as one of the cutting-edge
achievements in recent cosmic research [97-99]. The current rocket propulsion technology, however, has critically limited the pos
sibility of reaching neighboring planets due to the necessary travel time of tens to hundreds of millennia to accomplish the space
missions [100-102]. As a consequence, different advanced propulsion technologies have been proposed. For example, laser beaming
technology has enlightened the possibility of nanocrafts with the velocity of ~ 20% light speed, which potentializes the interstellar
travel of reaching Alpha Centauri that is 4.37 light year away from the Sun in approximately 20 years [103-106]. The nanocrafts are
accelerated by laser beaming through ground-based laser radiation [104,107-109]. Although the nanocrafts are designed with various
micro/nano-systems at the gram-scale to minimize the consumption of pushing power, the regular rechargeability of battery-based
conventional energy resources still results in a severe energy limit for the long-term interstellar travel [110-112]. Mechanical en
ergy metamaterials provide an alternative energy solution to address the power challenge. However, inadequate studies have been
carried out to investigate the energy harvesting performance of mechanical energy metamaterials [123-128]. Nor has a review article
in the literature been exploited to outlook the possibility of applying mechanical energy metamaterials in interstellar travel. It is
worthwhile to review such an important but not yet explored research trend.
In this review article, we first overview the debut and development of mechanical metamaterials, discussing their mechanical
performance with respect to the category and characteristics in mechanism, and the advantages and challenges in the application of
energy harvesting. Next, we deliberate the cosmic environment in interstellar travel, analyzing the main energy challenges accordingly
and examining the stringent design criteria for effective energy harvesting technologies. Eventually, we define the pathway needed to
apply mechanical energy metamaterials for energy harvesting in nanocrafts and envision the emerging nanoscale space energy systems
(nano-SES) for future energy innovations in interstellar travel. This review article explains what extraordinary electromechanical
characteristics that mechanical energy metamaterials perform and why; what power limits that nanocrafts are expected to be facing in
interstellar travel and why mechanical energy metamaterials can be a potential energy solution in the cosmic environment; and how to
surpass the technological issues of mechanical energy metamaterials in energy material discovery and structural optimization. The
objective of this review article is to build a broad perspective on the current progress of mechanical energy metamaterials, while
particularly outlooking the future direction of addressing the energy challenges in interstellar travel. The rest of the review article is
organized as: Section 2 summarizes the characterization and functionality exploration of mechanical metamaterials. Section 3
overviews the energy challenge and current technology in space exploration. Section 4 outlooks the application of mechanical energy
metamaterials in interstellar travel. Section 5 envisions the potential avenues and application paradigms of mechanical energy
metamaterials in the nano-SES for nanocrafts. Section 6 summarizes the main findings in this review article.
2. Characterization and functionality exploration of mechanical metamaterials
Mechanical metamaterials have debuted in the metamaterial family in the early 2000 s [129] and immediately attracted research
attention due to their extraordinary mechanical characteristics [130,131], which have experienced a rapid development during the
last two decades [1,13,132-134]. The prosperous community of mechanical metamaterials has led to the achievements in different
perspectives, mainly from the characterization that unveils the mechanisms of mechanical response such as programmable stiffness
[135-140], the fabrication that manufactures mechanical metamaterials with complex microstructural units at the multiscale [141-
143], to the functionality exploration that expands the performance beyond mechanical for multifunctional applications such as
energy harvesting and absorption [145-148,570,571], scientific computing [36,144,500], advanced sensing [87,354,501,593-595],
etc.
2.1. Current progress of mechanical metamaterials
In this section, the current progress of mechanical metamaterials is discussed with respect to the category and characteristics in
mechanism, and the advantages and challenges in the application of energy harvesting.
2.1.1. Category and characteristics
2.1.1.1. Category of mechanical metamaterials: design and assembly of microstructural units. Mechanical metamaterials are dominated
by the periodically microstructural units, and therefore, can be categorized with respect to the design and assembly of these micro
structures [7]. According to the formation of microstructures, we categorize mechanical metamaterials to lattice metamaterials,
origami metamaterials and chiral metamaterials [7], as shown in Fig. 4. It is worthwhile to point out that overlap is found between the
structural features of these categories due to the periodic assembly nature of mechanical metamaterials. For example, lattice and
origami metamaterials can be characterized as the periodic systems represented by single unit cells.
Origami metamaterials are the ultra-light and customizable 3D structures by folding uncut sheets into decorative and well-defined
shapes [7,189]. Origami metamaterials use origami microstructures (e.g., cellular origami) as basic blocks, which provides an effective
tool to transform 2D films into 3D structures by harnessing out-of-plane deformations [188]. The connection of origami
8
Fig. 4. Category of mechanical metamaterials [7]. Existing studies on the design, fabrication and mechanism analysis of (a) origami metamaterials
[182,189-192], (b) lattice metamaterials [161,162,193,204-206], and (c) chiral metamaterials [167,177,545,546,572].
microstructures mainly contains single loop such as square twist [182], 1D and 2D periodic microstructures, and nonperiodic mi
crostructures [183]. Most origami metamaterials are designed using the same single four-vertex geometry, and the folding strategies
are found in three types, i.e., Miura-ori, non-periodic Ron Resch, and square twist patterns [181]. The most common pattern of chiral
metamaterials is Miura-ori, which consists of the convex mountain and concave valley creases and has a periodical pattern with single
degree of freedom in the herringbone mode. Origami metamaterials are reported with the mechanical characteristics that can be
controllable with the number, order and orientation of folds. Shaping planar films into pre-folded decorative shapes, origami meta
materials have been reported with enhanced flexibility, compactness and deformability, ultrastiff and ultralight [138,179], and
negative Poisson’s ratio [180], which have been applied for multifunctional applications such as bio-origami hydrogel scaffolds [184]
or self-organized response [185]. Cutting regular films to form 2D planar sheets into 3D structures, kirigami metamaterials are a
special type of origami metamaterials [186]. Kirigami has been used to obtain complex patterns or shapes in 2D materials (e.g.,
graphene or polymer films). Kirigami metamaterials have been developed in three categories, including the 2D metamaterials that are
obtained simply from cutting planar films [146], the lattice-inspired metamaterials that combine (e.g., gluing) origami folding with
kirigami cutting [192], and the cellular-inspired kirigami metamaterials that cut patterns into cellular microstructures [187]. Cell
ularly kirigami metamaterials can be used to manufacture various crystallographic lattices, e.g., Kagome or honeycomb lattices [188].
Fig. 4(a) presents some existing studies on origami metamaterials [182,189-192].
Lattice metamaterials are the cellular, reticulated, truss or lattice structures made up of a large number of uniform lattice elements,
which are typically generated by tessellating unit cells through space [7,193]. Lattice metamaterials are considered as the structures
comprised of numerous tessellated lattice elements such as the octet-truss and bend-dominated tetrakaidecahedron geometries [194-
197]. Lattice metamaterials have been designed with the microstructures in the configurations of hierarchical horseshoe [199], open-
cells [200,201] and sinusoidal ligaments [29], buckliball [28], cubic chirality [202], etc. The mechanical performance of lattice
metamaterials can be enhanced by optimizing their microstructures through straight ligaments [198]. Given the significance of
microstructural beam elements to lattice metamaterials, recent studies have been conducted to decrease the density and increase the
stiffness by optimizing those beam elements [203]. For example, carbon lattice metamaterials have been designed with hollow nested
tubes by coating a nickel layer on the 3D printed polymer nanolattices. Comparing with the Young’s modulus and density of their
counterparts in the Ashby plot, lattice metamaterials with tube-in-tube microstructures have the Young’s modulus of ~ 1 MPa, which
is ten times higher than the porous materials with comparable densities mainly due to the higher load transfer efficiency and con
nectivity [155]. Cellular metamaterials have been reported as a specific type of lattice metamaterials that extend the origami design
strategy to 3D cellular materials [7]. The main difference between cellular and lattice metamaterials is on the microstructural units. In
particular, lattice units are designed by uniform lattice cells like nodes or struts. On the contrary, cellular units are typically found as
the origami/kirigami-enabled elements folded from 2D structures. Cellular metamaterials are typically 3D that assemble individual
origami layers or interweave origami tessellations into the lattice patterns [162]. Stacking [153] and interleaving [154] enabled by the
origami strategy have been used to form cellular metamaterials. In particular, the stacking technique folds hierarchical units to
generate complex 3D structures (e.g., extruded polyhedrons), and interleaving utilizes interweave units to form and assemble origami
9
elements. Cellular metamaterials with individual origami layers generally have the flat-foldable structural characteristics since varying
the fold pattern within each layer can achieve additional degrees of freedom. Due to the similarity to lattice metamaterials, cellular
metamaterials have also been reported with advanced mechanical characteristics, e.g., high strength and stiffness [157], negative
Poisson’s ratio and compressibility [156,158], high energy absorption [152], well stretchability [151], functionally graded response
[150], etc., which lead to multifunctional applications such as self-diagnose smart elements in civil infrastructures [88,155]. However,
cellular metamaterials critically depend on their constituent materials and optimal microstructures [155]. Fig. 4(b) presents some
existing studies on lattice metamaterials [161,162,193,204-206].
Chiral metamaterials are comprised of the left- or right-handed units that cannot be superimposed on their mirror images [163].
Comparing with the mechanical metamaterials assembled by symmetric microstructures, chiral metamaterials are found with the
periodic polygons connected by chiral ligaments [164,165]. In particular, chiral metamaterials are designed with the chiral micro
structures (e.g., chiral hexagons) and central cylinders (nodes) connected by tangentially attached ligaments [166,167]. Chiral mi
crostructures commonly exhibit rotational symmetry since they are formed by symmetric polygons and chiral ligaments, which can be
divided into chiral and anti-chiral structures with respect to the relative position of connection [168,170]. The existing studies of chiral
metamaterials have mainly been developed on the microstructures with 3, 4, or 6 ligaments, which are named as richiral, tetrachiral
and hexachiral metamaterials, respectively [164]. Other than the chiral metamaterials designed as 3, 4 and 6-ligament systems, recent
studies have reported the architected forms with other types of mixed connections [551-553]. Characterizing as non-superimposable
microstructures due to the chiral or anti-chiral connections [163,169], chiral metamaterials have been reported with the unique
mechanical characteristics of negative stiffness, modulus and negative Poisson’s ratio [177,231]. The mechanical characteristics of
chiral metamaterials (e.g., relative density [171,172]) can be tailored through those cellularly chiral microstructures, which leads to
the sensing [173], photonic [176] and acoustic applications [174,599]. Rigid unit mode (RUM) metamaterials, a well-known type of
rotating unit systems, are the engineered, auxetic materials connected together either directly through joints as in the case of rotating
rigid polygonal-unit systems or by ligaments/ribs as in the case of chiral honeycombs [545,546]. RUM metamaterials deform primarily
via rotation of blocks, which is similar to the deformation characteristics of typical chiral metamaterials. RUM metamaterials have
been reported with various negative properties such as negative Poisson’s ratio, negative compressibility and negative thermal
expansion. For example, RUM metamaterials constructed by squares [548] or equilateral triangles [549] connected together through
simple hinges have exhibited negative Poisson’s ratio. This is because the rotating rigid units with particular geometric features and
connections are expanded rather than contracted in certain directions when an axial tension or compression is applied to the meta
materials. The microstructural units in RUM metamaterials are rigid and nondeformable, and the auxetic behavior is due to the
rotation of the semirigid or flexible connections. Existing studies have extensively investigated the auxetic performance of RUM
metamaterials assembled by rotating rigid or semirigid units [547-550]. For example, in-plane isotropic Poisson’s ratio of 1 has been
obtained from the RUM metamaterials designed with the rotating squares connected by flexible hinges at the corners [548]. Fig. 4(c)
shows some existing studies on chiral metamaterials [167,177,545,546,572].
2.1.1.2. Characteristics of mechanical metamaterials: functionality and applications. Mechanical metamaterials have attracted research
attention due to their extraordinary mechanical characteristics [1,7]. According to the functionality and applications, the charac
teristics of mechanical metamaterials can be categorized into extremal response, negative response, active tunability and beyond
mechanics, as shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 5(a) presents the category of extremal mechanical response in ultrastiffness and ultralightweight
[193,207]. Ultrastiffness has initially been reported as the deformation resistance in certain modes but the deformation is extremely
soft in other modes [212]. Ultrastiffness of mechanical metamaterials can be theoretically analyzed in terms of the eigenvalue
determined by the elasticity tensor. In particular, mechanical metamaterials are stiff when their eigenvalue approaches infinity but soft
when the eigenvalue is close to zero. Ultrastiffness can be studied with respect to the number of small eigenvalues in the elasticity
tensor, i.e., uni-mode when mechanical metamaterials have only one small eigenvalue, and bi-, tri-, quadra- and penta-mode when
there are, respectively, two, three, four and five eigenvalues. Pentamode with five small eigenvalues is considered as the most common
ultrastiff mechanical metamaterials [7]. Supporting five modes of infinitesimal strain and one single stress, pentamode metamaterials
have extremely large bulk modulus B comparing with the shear modulus G. Due to the rarely changed volume after deformation, the
large bulk modulus causes a large Poisson’s ratio of approximately 0.5. Note that mechanical metamaterials can be designed by any
stiff and soft materials as long as the elasticity tensors meet the thermodynamics admissibility criteria [2]. Therefore, mechanical
metamaterials are able to perform high strength and toughness. The microscale [213] and macroscale [214] pentamode metamaterials
are found with the typical response of high bulk modulus and low shear modulus. Inspiring by biological materials such as nacre,
studies have been conducted to obtain the mechanical metamaterials with high strength and toughness due to the hierarchical mi
crostructures [215,216]. More recently, highly stiff and robust 2D mechanical metamaterials designed with the periodically hexagonal
pattern have been reported with up to 104 times enhancement of bending stiffness and complete recovery to the original configuration
under sharp bending (i.e., 100% axial strain) [4,429]. Ultralightweight is another key mechanical characteristic of mechanical met
amaterials. Due to the conflicting nature of stiffness and lightweight, it is typically difficult, if not impossible, to balance the trade-off
between stiffness and lightweight in most construction materials, i.e., achieving high strength and low mass density at the same time.
Although the stiffness of most natural and artificial materials decreases as the mass density is reduced, mechanical metamaterials have
been proposed with overcoming the trade-off of ultralightweight and high stiffness, i.e., ultrastiffness and ultralightweight are ob
tained at the same time [193]. Ultrastiff and ultralight mechanical metamaterials have been fabricated at the multiscale using different
manufacturing technologies in recent studies, such as photolithography, atomic layer deposition (ALD), and oxygen plasma etching
[204]. For example, pyrolysis and two-photon lithography (TPL) were used to effectively synthesize pyrolytic carbon lattice
10
Fig. 5. Characteristics of mechanical metamaterials. (a) Extremal response of ultrastiffness [193] and ultralightweight [207], (b) negative response
of negative stiffness [208] and negative Poisson’s ratio [19], (c) active tunability of adaptivity [209] and programmability [210], and (d) beyond
mechanics of electromechanical [123] and photovoltaic-mechanical or thermomechanical response [211].
metamaterials with nanoscale structs [155], and great recoverability under 50% compressive strain was obtained from the nanolattice
metamaterials made of the brittle material of alumina [204].
Negative response of mechanical metamaterials has been extensively investigated in recent years [217,218,544]. Fig. 5(b) shows
the mechanical metamaterials with negative stiffness (e.g., negative bulk or elastic moduli) and negative Poisson’s ratio [19,208].
Negative stiffness, the opposite of positive stiffness that resists deformation and recovers the original shape, deforms in the same
direction as external excitation to assist the deformation [2]. Comparing with the positive materials, negative stiffness typically results
in extremely deformation and is the main reason for the instability of negative materials. Forming by the microstructures with positive
or negative stiffness [231,232], mechanical metamaterials with negative stiffness have been reported with advantages in the acoustic
applications such as acoustic cloaking [221,230]. For example, the equivalent stiffness of mechanical metamaterials keq can be
( )
determined in terms of the stiffnesses of the positive materials K+ and negative materials K− as Keq = 1/ K+ − 1 +K− − 1 . The negative
response of mechanical metamaterials is based on negative elasticity tensors, which challenges the thermodynamic admissibility in
continuum mechanics that asserts elasticity tensors have to be positive [219]. Studies have been reported on the mechanical meta
materials with the negative mechanical characteristics (e.g., negative compressibility [220], negative stiffness [140], negative mass
density [221] and negative Poisson’s ratio [222,223]), the negative optical response [224], and the negative thermal properties [225].
Applications of negative metamaterials have been reported in the protection of vibration [234,235], earthquake [236], etc. Rigorous
bound conditions are defined to maintain the stability of mechanical metamaterials with negative stiffness [233]. For example,
negative mechanical response has been obtained from the postbuckling instability (i.e., snap-through mode transitions) of axially
loaded slender piezoelectric and triboelectric beams subjected to the bilateral constraints [140]. The elasticity tensors of those con
strained beams are negative and strong ellipticity is the theoretical requirement for the negative beam systems to be stable [229].
Negative beam systems have been used for energy harvesting and structural health monitoring [226-228]. Negative Poisson’s ratio
refers to the configuration that materials experience negative length, area or volume under axial loading (i.e., materials are shortened/
enlengthened in the transverse direction under compression/tension in the longitudinal direction). Negative Poisson’s ratio of me
chanical metamaterials can be categorized into the negative response due to the cellular microstructures or the combination of two or
11
more different materials [3]. The existing studies on the former have been reported as the negative 2D linear hexagonal honeycombs
[237] and the negative 3D lattice structures with hexagonal dodecahedron [238], and the studies on the latter are, for example, the
engineered, truss-type materials [158]. Various applications have been reported based on the mechanical metamaterials with negative
Poisson’s ratio [239], such as micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) [3], temperature detection and protection [177], and device
protection in deep ocean and other extreme conditions [240].
Mechanical metamaterials have been reported with well adaptivity and programmability, as shown in Fig. 5(c) [209,210]. The
emerging active tunability of adaptive mechanical metamaterials (AMM) [209] and programmable mechanical metamaterials (PMM)
[21,241,613-615] are considered as the future directions for multifunctional mechanical metamaterials. AMM take into account time
as an additional dimension to dynamically adjust mechanical metamaterials for new functionalities in advanced devices [10]. AMM
have been designed and fabricated by various functional materials such as shape memory materials (SMMs) [242-245], hydrogels
[246-248,610,611], liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) [249-251], etc. While maintaining the microstructural patterns, AMM replace
their conventional materials (e.g., polymers, alumina, etc.) by self-adaptive materials, such that the overall metamaterials are able to
automatically respond to different external stimuli. Therefore, AMM are able to automatically deform and recover to their original
configurations or adjust the structural and material properties. It is critical to select proper self-adaptive materials to let AMM satisfy
the requirements and be accurately stimulable under certain stimuli. AMM have particularly been developed subjected to various
stimuli [10], such as light source [252], electric current [253], magnetic field [254,255], thermal source [256], and so on. Light-
induced metamaterials can be timelessly, remotely and precisely activated by different types of light sources, and electrical-
induced metamaterials can be easily triggered in electrical fields. Note that electrical metamaterials are typically connected
through wires, which limits the applications of the metamaterials. Recent research direction has been shifted to utilize electrical
metamaterials for energy harvesting [82,257]. Due to the enhancement of mechanical metamaterials, the generated electrical power
can be optimized with respect to the external excitations such as low-amplitude and low-frequency ocean fluctuation. Magnetic-
induced metamaterials have attracted significant attention in recent years, mainly due to the advantages of accurate response, low
energy consumption, and contactless control [37,258]. Since magnetic fields can be easily applied and travel through non-magnetic
media, magnetic metamaterials are suitable for bioengineering and biomedical applications. Thermal-induced metamaterials have
been used in the applications of bioengineering, flexible electronics, deployable structures, etc. [45,46]. PMM primarily refer to two
types of tunability, i.e., controllably mechanical characteristics such as stiffness [259-261], Poisson’s ratio [140,222,229,615], elastic
wave propagation [262,263] or deformation configurations [613,614,616], and controllably self-responsible characteristics such as
self-adaptive under external excitations [177] and self-stimulated under certain stimuli [36]. The first type of tunability is obtained by
designing various microstructures in conventional materials, and the second type of tunability (also known as smart or active me
chanical metamaterials) is obtained by replacing the conventional materials with functional materials, such as PMM designed by SMMs
for self-adaption under thermal or magnetic stimuli [177]. The second type of PMM have attracted research attention since their recent
debut [498].
Recent studies have explored the superiority of mechanical metamaterials in the domain of beyond mechanics, as shown in Fig. 5
(d) [123,211]. Although mechanical metamaterials are typically characterized with respect to their extraordinary mechanical char
acteristics, exploring advanced functionality in the fields beyond mechanics is an emerging subject for novel applications of functional
materials by mechanical design [10,264]. The interdisciplinary functionality can be obtained from structurally designing functional
materials in mechanical metamaterials, i.e., design the periodically microstructural units by functional materials [127,265,266,388].
Research has shed light on mechanical metamaterials with electromechanical performance, i.e., mechanical energy metamaterials
[267-270]. Studies have particularly been conducted on mechanical energy metamaterials subjected to various external excitations,
such as triggering in the acoustic [271-274], thermophotovoltaic [124,275-279], mechanical [280-283] and magnetic fields [284-
288]. Among these excitations, mechanical energy is a promising source for sustainable energy harvesting [264]. To obtain the
functionalities of energy harvesting and absorption, mechanical energy metamaterials have been designed in various structures (e.g.,
hyperbolic [289], lattices [290-292] and multistable microstructures [293]), using different functional materials (e.g., epoxy nano
frames [294], SLM [295] and metallic microlattices [296,297]) based on different fabrication technologies (e.g., additive
manufacturing AM [298,299]). Piezoelectric [90] and triboelectric [91,302] materials have been used to generate electrical power
under different types of mechanical energy such as vibration [303,304], wave propagation [305], and cyclic loading [306]. For
example, mechanical piezoelectric metamaterials (MPM) (see Section 2.3.1) and mechanical triboelectric metamaterials (MTM) (see
Section 2.3.2) have been reported using piezoelectric and triboelectric materials, respectively, to generate electrical power while
using mechanical metamaterials as the structural substrates to enhance the energy efficiency [44,66,78,84,86,88]. Thermal energy is
considered as one of the most well-known energy sources in nature, and therefore, mechanical metamaterials have been used to
convert thermal energy into electrical power through certain functional materials such as photovoltaic-mechanical or thermo
mechanical materials [40,43,44,300]. Implanting or embedding thermophotovoltaic materials in mechanical metamaterials for energy
transfer and storage, photovoltaic- or thermomechanical metamaterials can be used as the energy microdevices in nano-
electromechanical systems (NEMS) [301]. Either directly lighting or transferring heat from the temperature changes of external
environment, photovoltaic- or thermomechanical metamaterials efficiently absorb thermal energy and convert into electrical power
[300]. In addition, computational operation has been achieved using mechanical metamaterials designed with programmably
magnetic-to-mechanical response [36]. Analogous to digital bits, memorable mechanical metamaterials have been reported using the
mechanical bits consisted of magnetic-to-mechanical binary elements with writing and reading phases. Each mechanical bit can be
switched between the bistable states (i.e., equilibria) under the magnetic actuation. Table 2 groups the existing studies of mechanical
metamaterials with respect to the category, formation, characteristics and functionality.
12
Table 2
Existing studies of mechanical metamaterials with respect to the category, formation, characteristics and functionality.
Mechanical metamaterials References
Category Origami metamaterials [84,138,146,154,179,180,181,182,183,

and 184,185,186,188,189,190,191,
formation 192,241,250,252,465]
Lattice metamaterials [11,13,20,29,30,44,77,85,132,139,148,
149,150,151,152,154,159,160,162,170,
171,175,186,192,194,195,196,197,198,
199,200,202,204,205,206,207,238,243,
244,256,260,268,281,282,290,291,292,
295,296,297,298,309,313,333,335,354,
369,417,451,457,464]
Chiral metamaterials [23,25,133,163,164,165,166,167,168,
169,170,171,172,173,174,175,178,189,
198,222,223,270,451,474,545,546,551,
552,553,554,556,558,572,573]
Characteristics and Extremal response Ultrastiffness [7,12,32,33,34,76,77,136,137,138,139,
functionality 140,157,231,232,233,234,235,236,259,
260,261,449,471]
Ultralightweight [4,73,135,137,141,148,161,193,203,204,
221,260,324,314,453,485]
Negative response Negative stiffness [32,33,34,76,77,158,231,232,234,236]
Negative Poisson’s ratio [26,27,28,32,54,156,180,201,222,229,238,466]
Active tunability Adaptive [23,177,185,190,191,207,209,245,256,
307,318,330,467,498]
Programmable [21,22,24,36,55,140,177,179,191,210,
241,255,470,471]
Beyond mechanics Electro-mechanical [18,40,41,42,47,52,53,54,56,65,73,74,75,
77,78,80,81,82,83,87,114,115,128,145,
152,168,226,227,252,257,263,281,282,
283,289,290,291,292,293,294,296,297,
298,299,342,343,346,350]
Photovoltaic- or thermos-mechanical [39,43,46,48,49,109,124,126,177,245,256,
265,279,280,300,356,385,491]
2.1.2. Advantages and challenges

The previous section summarizes the advantages of mechanical metamaterials in characteristics [307-312] and programmable
response [313-318], and discuss their fabrication technologies [319-321] and applications. It is necessary to point out that, however,
mechanical metamaterials have been facing challenges in analysis [322] and application [323,324]. Fig. 6 discusses the challenges of
mechanical metamaterials in analysis with respect to the designability and performance, and in application with respect to the fab
ricability and complexity. First of all, analysis of mechanical metamaterials needs to effectively balance the designability and per
formance. Analyzing the designability and performance of mechanical metamaterials can be conducted in two directions, i.e., response
prediction and inverse design [325,499]. Response prediction aims to establish quantitative relationships between the key parameters
in microstructures (i.e., input variables) and the key performance (i.e., output variables) [1,326,327]. However, the complexity of
microstructures results in the difficulty in characterizing the key parameters and establishing accurately quantitative relationships
using the traditional statistical tools. Inverse design aims to establish a top-down approach to design microstructures based on the
overall performance requirements in application. The overall performance can be tuned based on the multi-optionality of micro
structures and their assembly strategies. As a consequence, the top-down approach represents a performance-oriented design strategy
for mechanical metamaterials, which can significantly reduce the complexity while maintaining the performance. Analysis challenges
are primarily due to the dilemma between the complexity and designability [330-332]. Lattice metamaterials, for example, contain the
microstructures designed in different orientations [333]. The microstructure boundaries may assist further deterioration of slippage
and cracks. Therefore, microstructures and their tessellation need to be well designed in lattice metamaterials. However, the high
complexity of lattice metamaterials causes the difficulty in characterizing the dominant factors in microstructures [334,335], and
therefore, causes the difficulty in defining the objective functions based on the requirements in application. The lack of dominant
factors and objective functions is the main reason for the inadequacy of accurate relationships between the design factors and per
formance. Although the analysis of mechanical metamaterials can be simplified based on structural symmetricity, the intuitive
guidelines are insufficient to achieve desirable mechanical response. As a consequence, the challenges lead to the issues of mechanical
metamaterials in performance optimization, response prediction and inverse design.
Next, application of mechanical metamaterials needs to balance the fabricability and complexity [328,329]. The fabricability of
mechanical metamaterials is limited by the production technologies such as multiscale AM, direct laser cutting (DLC), focused ion
beam (FIB) milling, nanomembrane technology, etc. DLC has been reported as a precise tool to fabricate mechanical metamaterials
with periodically microstructural units, especially for kirigami metamaterials or 2D auxetic metamaterials at the micro/nanoscales.
Existing studies have demonstrated the high accuracy of fabricating a range of tailorable mechanical metamaterials using the DLC
technology [554,555]. FIB milling has been reported with high precision and resolution in fabricating microscale mechanical
13
Fig. 6. Challenges of mechanical metamaterials in analysis and application. Analysis challenge is the dilemma between designability and
performance and application challenge is the dilemma between complexity and designability.
metamaterials. FIB is found as a powerful technology for mechanical metamaterials with the geometries varied between the micro/
nanoscale, which has been extensively used for micro-machining and advanced 3D microstructural analysis. FIB has also been used to
produce nano etches or apertures and change the refractive index of plasmonic metamaterials. As a consequence, FIB milling has been
used to fabricate 2D and 3D mechanical metamaterials with a variety of patterns, ranging from etched structures, complex periodic
hole networks, spiral chiral structures to truss networks [556]. Nanomembrane technology has provide a simple and efficient solution
to fabricate micro/nanoscale mechanical metamaterials, especially for the reconfiguration of nanoscale metamaterials that are not
auxetic. For example, reconfigurable metamaterials with anisotropic light modulation and engineered, resonant optical properties
have been fabricated using the plasmonic-thin-film-coated nanomembrane technology [557]. Complexity critically affects the char
acteristic and functionality of mechanical metamaterials since complex microstructures, if not infeasible in fabrication, results in
various local defects in AM, which critically affects the functionality and application of overall metamaterials. For example, multi
functional applications in the fields beyond mechanics (e.g., energy harvesting and absorption) typically require mechanical meta
materials to be designed with complex microstructures and adequate robustness.
Application challenges are mainly due to the dilemma between performance and fabricability. Ideal performance of mechanical
metamaterials generally need requires complex microstructures [336-338], which is a severe obstacle to the fabricability since some
microstructural designs are technologically infeasible to the current fabrication technologies, let alone the commercial production that
significantly depends on the production line with a high technology readiness level. For example, lattice metamaterials are designed by
various cellular, reticulated or truss structures. Due to the single orientation of the lattices in the metamaterials, slippage and cracks are
easy to propagate once the interior slippage and deformation occur along a specific plane, which renders the ineffectiveness of the
metamaterials and severely limits their applications. Mechanical metamaterials are commonly expensive and specialized in fabrica
tion. Therefore, the quality control issue in commercial production can result in the imperfection and lack of robustness. Generalized
analytical modeling in analysis is expected to be an effective method to address the challenges of mechanical metamaterials in
application. Given the difficulty and expense of fabricating mechanical metamaterial, traditional strategy is to establish a generalized
analytical model using time-consuming numerical analysis (e.g., numerical simulations by commercial software) or excessively
simplified theoretical analysis (e.g., analytical modeling and iterative calculations). Recently, data-driven analytics and techniques (e.
g., artificial intelligence AI algorithms) provide a powerful tool to address the challenges in mechanical metamaterials [1]. See Sec. 4.2
for discussion in detail.
14
2.2. Functionality exploration of mechanical metamaterials by energy materials
Energy materials are among the pioneering functional materials that enable electrical response under various external stimuli,
which have been extensively investigated to develop various electronic devices at the multiscale, e.g., printable and wearable elec
tronics [512], biodegradable devices [379], soft robots [304], etc. Given the essence of energy materials as the formation of nano
structured energy composites, i.e., functional nanocomposites combined by bulk syntheses of nanoscale components, it is of
significance to study the nanostructural design and scalable assembly of energy materials. Inspired by the structural strategy of me
chanical metamaterials, it is possible to optimize energy materials from randomly forming the composites to periodically assembling
the functional nanostructures, such that to make the energy materials industrially producible through spin-offs and assembly.
2.2.1. Soft electronic and other energy materials

Soft electronic materials (e.g., various conductive materials) are important members in the family of energy materials, which have
been used to fabricate multiscale electronic devices [301,360,600]. Studied have been carried out to improve the electromechanical
performance of those devices [612]. Due to the nature of composites with microstructural networks, the electromechanical response of
the soft electronic materials can be improved by tuning and optimizing the microstructural units. Conductive elastomer composites
(CEC) are the kind of energy materials designed by conductive components in insulating matrices [510]. The conductivity and re
sistivity of CEC are significantly dependent on the overall network nanostructures and the contact resistance between the filler par
ticles. Fig. 7(a) shows the CEC comprised of the periodically assembled, microstructural networks at the multiscale to obtain higher
conductivity than the energy materials designed with random compositions. As a particular type of CEC, inkjet-printable conductive
inks are designed with metal nanoparticles to form solid films with small organic fraction. The fraction is necessary to stabilize the
conductive inks and enable the printability, but it impedes electrical transport and generally necessitates a post-deposition treatment
to attain acceptable electrical properties. The electromechanical properties of the CEC have been used for emerging applications in
energy harvesting and active sensing. It is necessary for the CEC to perform a large piezoresistive effect to sense and small piezo-
resistivity to form conductive connections. Fig. 7(b) shows a new type of ink that replaces the insulating organic stabilizers with
conductive polymers. The ink dries and forms the hybrid metal-polymer networks with the conductivities that are closer to the metal
than the polymers.
Nonlinearly tunable electrical response of energy materials is critical for multiscale electronic devices. To effectively tune the
electrical properties of energy materials, it is necessary to use the tools of chemical modification, self-assembly, controlled processing,
structure analysis, and materials characterization and modelling. The existing studies have extensively focused on the design of
electromechanical circuits that combine soft actuators and sensors. For example, conductivity needs to be drastically reduced in a
narrow strain range while maintaining nearly constant in the rest range such that to design an effective rectifier. Mechanical meta
materials have been investigated to achieve controllable mechanical properties (see Fig. 5), which can be used to expand the energy
Fig. 7. Conductive elastomer composites (CEC) with microstructural networks for tunable electrical properties such as piezoresistive effect and
long-term stability. (a) CEC designed with single-particle conductive networks under cyclic loading which have a limited piezoresistive effect and
clear drift. (b) CEC contained two-particle combined networks with reduced aging. (c) Fabrication of TPU composites with carbon nanofillers and
the brick-like structure in TPU composites. Relative resistance variation vs. strain for TPU composites with 2 wt% of carbon nanofillers (i.e., CNS.
CNT and GNS) [509]. (d) Fabrication procedures and structure of the segregated sulfur-cured rubber composites, including conducting a master
batch of rubber composites, and compounding the resultant masterbatch, rubber gum, natural rubber granules and curing additives. Relative
resistance variations of S-NR/CNT and H-NR/CNT are compared under the cyclic stretching of 20% strain [510],
15
materials to mechanical energy metamaterials with tunable electromechanical characteristics. Recent studies have been carried out to
understand how mechanical energy metamaterials can be created by the composition design to obtain desirable mechanical and
electrical nonlinearities. Fig. 7(c) shows the segregated filler network structures to develop conductive networks at the thermoplastic
polyurethane (TPU) interface [509]. In particular, TPU composite films are fabricated with segregated networks of carbon nanofillers
by mixing TPU particles in a filler suspension and drying to obtain compression molding of filler coated TPU powders. The relative
resistance variation (ΔR/R0) is investigated with strain for the TPU mixed with 2 wt% of branched carbon nanotubes (CNS), multi-
walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) and graphene nanoplatelets (GNS) powders, respectively. Fig. 7(d) presents the fabrication proced
ures and the structure of the segregated sulfur-cured rubber composites [510]. In particular, the fabrication consists of two steps. A
masterbatch of rubber composites is first conducted by compounding natural rubber gum with 50 wt% of CNT in a Banbury mixer, and
the resultant masterbatch, rubber gum and natural rubber granules are prepared in the same way. Next, curing additives are com
pounded by an open two-roll mill under the hot pressure at 143 ◦ C for the optimum time. Relative resistance variation (ΔR/R0) of the
segregated natural rubber with CNT (S-NR/CNT) and homogenous natural rubber with CNT (H-NR/CNT) are compared under the
cyclic stretching of 20% strain.
2.2.2. Mechanical metamaterials made by energy materials

Power consumption of electronics has experienced a dramatically increasing in recent years, which results in the critical necessity
of directly powering the devices by generating electrical energy from the environment [341-343], especially for the microdevices used
in the conditions that are difficult to charge using the conventional approaches [339,340]. To efficiently generate electrical power
from the environment, it is critical to select effective energy materials [344] and design them in appropriate structures [18]. Me
chanical metamaterials are the artificially periodic structures that utilize microstructural units to obtain exotic mechanical properties,
which can enhance the propagation characteristics of different ambient energy sources, e.g., mechanical, thermophotovoltaic,
acoustic, etc. [263,345,346]. Satisfying the objective applications by designing and tuning the microstructural units is considered as
one of the main advantages in mechanical metamaterials. Mechanical metamaterials are able to provide promising mechanical sub
strates for energy materials to improve the ambient energy sources through their superior and tunable mechanical characteristics
Fig. 8. Planar mechanical metamaterials made by conductive and insulating materials for controllable electromechanical characteristics. (a)
Fabrication procedures of the alumina-coated graphene oxide (GO) fillers filled with natural rubber (NR) nanocomposites for controllable con
ductivity and enhanced strength [511]. (b) Potential applications of the insulating materials (e.g., 3D rGO@Al2O3-NR) and conductive materials (e.
g., PLA-CB or EC) in the cylindrical and holey patterns of the recently reported planar mechanical metamaterials [326] for tunable electrome
chanical characteristics.
16
[86,88]. Through the inverse design of mechanical metamaterials (i.e., mechanical substrates), the installed or embedded energy
materials can be efficiently triggered under the excitations in the applications [347,348]. Automatic power supplies enabled by energy
harvesting play an important role in various devices or systems, e.g., NEMS or MEMS [267], wireless sensing systems [87], wearable
devices [349], etc. Designing various energy materials using the mechanical metamaterial strategy, mechanical energy metamaterials
are considered as a paradigm shift in advanced structural materials, which are expected to address the technological bottleneck of
controlling the mechanical and electrical properties simultaneously through rational design and periodic assembly of network material
composites.
Mechanical energy metamaterials have been reported with tunable electrical characteristics and well mechanical superiority
[350,351]. The electromechanical performance of mechanical energy metamaterials can be explained by the energy materials at the
microscale and the overall structures at the macroscale. The microscale theory is that the composition networks can be tailored to
generate energy materials with well-defined electromechanical properties, and the macroscale theory is that the metamaterial-inspired
structures can be periodically designed to create mechanical energy metamaterials with tunable electrical characteristics such as
nonlinear conductivity and resistivity. Fig. 8 demonstrates the periodically functional composites with controllable electromechanical
characteristics. Fig. 8(a) illustrates the fabrication procedures of the alumina-coated graphene oxide (GO) fillers filled with natural
rubber (NR) nanocomposites (3D rGO@Al2O3-NR) that have tunable conductivity and enhanced strength [511]. The GO@Al2O3 fillers
aqueous suspension is mixed with the NR latex and reduced to form the hybrid hydrogel, and the hydrogel is dried and compressed into
the composite plates. Significant volume shrinkage is obtained from the removal of moisture results before and after drying of the gel.
The GO sheets carrying Al2O3 can connect with each other to form a filler network. Fig. 8(b) illustrates the potential application of the
insulating materials (e.g., the reported 3D rGO@Al2O3-NR) and conductive materials (e.g., polylactic acid with carbon black PLA-CB
or elastomer-carbon EC) in the cylindrical and holey patterns of the recently proposed planar mechanical metamaterials [326]. The
planar mechanical metamaterials were found with predictable mechanical characteristics such as the enhanced tensile and
compressive stiffnesses, which can lead to the structure-induced tunability of electrical properties such as the conductivity and
Fig. 9. Recent studies on design and optimization of different energy materials for energy harvesting. (a) Homogenization scheme for 1D het
erogeneous microstructures to form the piezoelectric composites with electro-momentum coupling [31]. (b) Triboelectric metamaterials periodi
cally designed with the unit cells for energy harvesting and vibration reduction [35]. (c) Electromagnetic metamaterial slab designed with the
electrically small cells for electromagnetic energy harvesting [49]. (d) Multiband metamaterial absorbers designed with three layers of aluminum
and SiO2 for solar energy harvesting [124].
17
resistivity of the conductive materials.

Studies have been conducted to design and optimize various energy materials in metamaterial-inspired structures for energy
harvesting [89]. Different types of mechanical energy metamaterials have been developed for energy harvesting by designing various
energy materials in engineered structures, including piezoelectric [80,82,257], triboelectric [86,88], electromagnetic [47-49] and
photovoltaic materials [43]. Unique electromechanical characteristics and high energy conversion efficiency are particularly obtained
by triggering the energy materials under unsatisfactory environments such as low-frequency, low-amplitude or arbitrary temperature
fluctuation, structural vibration, etc. [1]. Fig. 9 presents recent studies on different energy metamaterials for energy harvesting under
different energy sources. Fig. 9(a) shows the homogenization scheme for 1D heterogeneous microstructures to form the piezoelectric
composites with electro-momentum coupling [31]. The authors reported the 1D periodic composite with repeating unit cells and took
material assignment as a design tool to tailor next-generation piezoelectric metamaterials. Influence of the material heterogeneity and
asymmetry was analyzed on the electro-momentum coupling in terms of the inconsecutive and irregular order of the material dis
tribution. Fig. 9(b) demonstrates the triboelectric metamaterials to harvest environmental energy and reduce vibration [35]. The
authors took advantage of the structural strategy of mechanical metamaterials to obtain the engineered triboelectric metamaterials for
energy harvesting and vibration reduction. The unit cells were particularly designed with local resonators, triboelectric materials in
the contact-separation mode, and spiral-shaped connecting beams, which were assembled on the planar acrylate structural substrate.
Fig. 9(c) presents the metamaterial slab designed with the electric unit cells that were operated in the microwave regime based on an
array of electric-inductive-capacitive resonators for electromagnetic energy harvesting [49]. The unit cells consisted of face-to-face
split rings sharing the same gap, dielectric substrates, ground planes, and load connected between the top and bottom conductive
layers. The authors obtained the measured and simulated peak energy efficiency of 93% and 97%, respectively, for the unit cells. Fig. 9
(d) displays the multiband metamaterial absorbers designed with three layers of aluminum and SiO2 where the interaction between
them can increase the plasmonic resonances for solar energy harvesting [124]. The metamaterial absorbers were designed with three
layers, including the bottom layer of continuous metallic, the middle layer of dielectric separator, and the top layer of metallic
resonator.
2.2.3. Mechanical and electrical properties of mechanical energy metamaterials

Mechanical and electrical properties are the important characteristics in mechanical energy metamaterials, which are dominated
by the design of microstructures in mechanical metamaterials and the selection of energy materials. It is necessary to characterize
mechanical metamaterials and energy materials and compare their mechanical and electrical properties. Ashby plots are the scatter
plots that display various classes of materials in terms of two material properties such as strength-to-stiffness or toughness-to-Young’s
modulus, which are an effective tool to compare the mechanical properties of natural and manmade materials [7]. Ashby plots are
Fig. 10. Expanded Ashby plot (E − ρ − Pdensity ) for the mechanical and electrical properties of the selected solid materials. Comparison and sum
mation of the solid materials in the relationship of Young’s modulus–density (E − ρ) [193,374,375]. Comparisons of the piezoelectric and tribo
electric materials in the relationships of Young’s modulus–peak power density (E − Pdensity ) and density–peak power density (ρ − Pdensity )
[116,377-387].
18
convenient since they provide helpful information on what materials are superior in the considered properties and, more importantly,
clarify the most effective ratio (i.e., performance trade-off) between the two properties. Therefore, Ashby plots are able to evaluate the
mechanical and electrical properties of mechanical energy metamaterials.
Fig. 10 presents the expanded Ashby plot to compare the mechanical properties (i.e., Young’s modulus E and density ρ) and
electrical property (i.e., peak power density) of the selected solid materials [116,193,374-387]. Comparing with the 2D Ashby plot of
E − ρ, the expanded E − ρ − Pdensity chart connects the mechanical and electrical characteristics by considering the electrical property in
the third dimension. To evaluate the mechanical substrates of mechanical energy metamaterials, the Young’s modulus–density (E − ρ)
relationship is first compared and summarized on the selected architected materials and structures [193,374,375]. The stretch-based
lattice metamaterials have been developed with octet-truss microstructures to achieve ultralight and ultrastiff mechanical response.
Those mechanical metamaterials outperform many conventionally ultralight, manmade materials (e.g., composites, metals and
elastomers) that are typically identified as E ρ2 or E ρ3 [141]. A linear Young’s modulus-to-density relation is desirable since it rep
resents a high mechanical efficiency that the least mass of materials is required to achieve the most effective material utility. To further
obtain ultralight self-weight, well recoverability, and nearly linear strength-stiffness relations, recent studies have developed the 2D
and 3D hierarchical metamaterials by polymers, hollow ceramics, and ceramic polymer composites [376]. These mechanical meta
materials perform advanced properties, which provide the possibility of controlling the mechanical response by appropriately
designing the microstructures. Next, the mechanical-to-electrical relationship is investigated in terms of the Young’s modulus–peak
power density (E − Pdensity ) and density–peak power density (ρ − Pdensity ) relations on the selected piezoelectric and triboelectric ma
terials [116,377]. In particular, the triboelectric materials of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) [378], polyvinyl chloride (PVC) [379],
polyethylene terephthalate (PET) [380,381] and fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) [382] are compared with the piezoelectric
materials of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) [383], TOCN/PDMS [384], C/PDMS/AuNPs [385], CNC/PVDF-HEP [386] and CNC/
PA11 [387].
Fig. 11 presents the expanded Ashby plot (K − Voltage − Pdensity ) for the mechanical and electrical responses of the selected me
chanical energy metamaterials [66,86,87,257,574,589-591]. The existing MTM and MPM prototypes are compared between the
mechanical property of stiffness and the electrical properties of voltage and peak power density. Significant variation of the me
chanical and electrical performance is found between the MTM and MPM mainly due to two reasons. First, energy materials (e.g., the
solid materials in Fig. 10) play a key role in the mechanical and electrical responses of the prototypes, and therefore, it is significant to
discover the most effective materials. Second, structural design (e.g., mechanical metamaterials in Fig. 4) critically affects the overall
performance. Given the dominant role that structural design plays in the mechanical and electrical properties of the energy materials,
mechanical energy metamaterials can be obtained with controllably electromechanical characteristics by properly designing the
microstructural units. See Section 4.2.3 for detailed discussion on the material discovery and structural optimization of mechanical
energy metamaterials.
Fig. 12 compares the mechanical and electrical performance of the selected energy materials. Comparison is provided on the tensile
strength-to-compressive/flexural strength (Stensile − Scomp /Sflex ) response between the energy materials of piezoelectric materials (i.e.,
PVDF [383]) and triboelectric materials (i.e., PMMA [378], PET [380,381] and FEP [382]) under the low-amplitude cyclic stimuli
below 10 Hz. Although the energy materials are generally flexible, their hardness characteristics still vary from Shore D65 to D87 and
this is likely to affect the anti-fatigue robustness of these materials under cyclic excitations. The relationship of peak power-to-
Fig. 11. Expanded Ashby plot (K − Voltage − Pdensity ) for the mechanical and electrical responses of the selected MTM and MPM. Comparison and
summation of the stiffness K, voltage and peak power density Pdensity between the existing MTM and MPM prototypes [66,86,87,257,574,589-591].
19
Fig. 12. Mechanical and electrical performance of the selected energy materials. Comparisons of the tensile and compressive/flexural strengths
(Stensile − Scomp /Sflex ) and the hardness characteristics for anti-fatigue robustness under cyclic excitations. Comparison of the peak power under cyclic
excitations with different frequencies (P − f ) [378,380-383].
excitation frequency (P − f) is reported to compare the energy conversion efficiency of the energy materials. The piezoelectric and
triboelectric materials in the existing studies are found with significantly different power outputs. Although the externally mechanical
excitations are generally less than 10 Hz, the variation of the power output demonstrates the controllability of the energy materials by
structural design, i.e., the energy materials are likely to perform differently under the same conditions [1,7].
2.2.4. Controllability of electromechanical properties

Mechanical energy metamaterials use energy materials in mechanical metamaterials to achieve tunable electromechanical prop
erties, and thus, controllability of mechanical energy metamaterials can be conducted through the optimization of nanostructured
composition networks. For example, the mechanical characteristics of deformation resistance and electrical percolation properties of
conductivity or resistivity can be programmed by designing the conductive and insulating composites. Fig. 13 explains the mechanism
of controlling the electromechanical response of planar mechanical energy metamaterials [592]. Fig. 13(a) shows the experimental
setup and testing for the mechanical properties of bending and tensile stiffness and electrical properties of conductivity and resistivity.
In particular, the planar metamaterials can be connected to an electrometer through an insulated banana cable to measure the
electrical conductivity and resistivity. Cyclic tension and compression strains are applied from 0% to 12% under a constant loading
frequency of 1 Hz using an axial loading machine, and the planar metamaterials are electrically measured using an electrometer with
respect to the network material composites and deformation strain. Fig. 13(b) demonstrates the conductivity and resistivity ratio with
the loading time. Electrical conductivity and resistivity ratio are measured using the two-wire resistivity measurement method.
Constant electrical properties are obtained since the planar metamaterials are cyclically deformed in the fully recoverable region (i.e.,
nanostructured composites are remained the same prior and posterior to the deformation). Fig. 13(c) presents the conductivity-strain
relationships under axial tension. Variation of conductive and non-conductive regions can be obtained on the electrical conductivity.
When the tensile deformations is applied and released, the planar metamaterials are stretched in the longitudinal direction, which
leads to the deformation of the conductive and insulating composites between the neighboring microstructures. Therefore, the
percolation networks are changed and their corresponding electrical properties are changed as well. Fig. 13(d) displays the resistivity
ratio ΔR/R0 under the tensile and compressive strains changed from 0% to 12%. Due to the rational design of the periodic nano
structures, the electrical resistivity is controlled to highly nonlinear under in axial tension and compression. Therefore, varying the
design of the nanostructure leads to programmable, nonlinearly electrical resistivity with tensile and compressive strains. To simulate
the network material composites, for example, a union-find algorithm can be developed to obtain the electrical percolation network
from top to bottom electrodes of the conductive and insulating composites. Two conductivity mechanisms, i.e., intrinsic and tunneling
conductance, can be used to model the conducting paths in the conductive and insulating composites. In particular, the intrinsic and
tunneling conductance can be determined by the conductive composites between two neighboring microstructures.
20
Fig. 13. Controllably electromechanical characteristics of planar mechanical energy metamaterials [592]. (a) Experimental setup and testing for the
mechanical and electrical properties under axial tension. (b) Electrical conductivity and resistivity subjected to the tensile strain of 12%. (c)
Conductivity-strain relationship comprised of the non-conductive and conductive regions under the axial tension, and (d) controllably nonlinear
resistivity under axial tension and compression.
2.3. Mechanical energy metamaterials for energy harvesting
Fig. 14 illustrates the energy harvesting response of the proposed mechanical energy metamaterials at the mechanism, prototype
and device levels. Mechanical metamaterials are deployed as the engineered mechanical substrates with extremal response, negative
response and active tunability. MPM are obtained by deploying piezoelectric materials in the microstructures of mechanical meta
materials to convert mechanical deformation into electrical output [82]. The tunable mechanical response of mechanical meta
materials effectively increases the energy conversion efficiency of MPM. MTM [512] are obtained by designing triboelectric materials
in mechanical metamaterials to convert relative displacement into electrical output based on the triboelectric effect.
Fig. 14. Principle and paradigm of mechanical energy metamaterials for energy harvesting. Mechanical metamaterials as the mechanical substrates
with extremal characteristics, negative response and active tunability. MPM [82] and MTM [512] obtained by deploying piezoelectric and tribo
electric materials, respectively, in the microstructures of mechanical metamaterials to achieve advanced mechanical and electromechan
ical responses.
21
2.3.1. Mechanical piezoelectric metamaterials

Mechanical metamaterials are designed and tailored by periodic microstructures to obtain the exotic mechanical properties beyond
natural materials or chemical synthesized substances. To explore the properties beyond mechanics, energy materials have been used to
embed, install or coat on different types of mechanical metamaterials [10,66]. Piezoelectric materials, for example, have been used in
mechanical metamaterials for ultrasonic imaging, sensing and energy harvesting [80,607,608]. Piezoelectric effect was initially found
in single crystal quartz, which was further expanded to a series of piezoelectric materials including perovskite ceramics (e.g., lead
zirconate titanate (PZT), barium titanate (BTO), etc.), ferroelectric ilmenite (e.g., lithium niobate (LiNbO3), lithium tantalite (LiTaO3),
etc.), and polymer (e.g., PVDF, etc.) [609]. Two types of strategies are generally reported to tune the mechanical-to-electrical prop
erties of piezoelectric materials, i.e., introducing pores in cellular piezoelectric materials [44], and adding second phase materials such
as piezocomposites [82,257]. Rapid development of nanotechnology and AM (e.g., 3D printing) has provided well feasibility and
competitivity to the MPM designed with complex microstructures at the micro/nanoscale. According to the pore interconnections, four
types of cellular MPM have been developed, including the metamaterials that pores are connected in one direction and matrix connects
in the other three directions, pores and matrix are connected in two or three dimensions, or pores are enclosed by matrix. Comparing to
the cellular MPM, piezocomposites that embedded brittle piezoelectric ceramics in soft polymers have been reported with advanced
energy harvesting performance. Among polymer-enabled piezocomposites, PVDF that has piezoelectric matrix are found with higher
energy harvesting effectiveness than those without epoxy piezoelectric matrix [146,294]. More recently, the mechanical-to-electrical
properties of piezocomposites are investigated on ceramic-based materials [352].
Fig. 15 presents the cellular MPM for the thermo-electro-mechanical characteristics [44]. Fig. 15(a) demonstrates the cellular MPM
assembled by the periodic pore microstructures and representative volume elements. The pore microstructures were investigated to
tune the relative density and polarization direction, and hence, control the dielectric, elastic, piezoelectric, thermal and pyroelectric
properties of the MPM. Rotation angle, scaling factor, and shape parameters of the microstructures were particularly used to tailor the
characteristics. Fig. 15(b) shows the bi-material MPM components designed in the longitudinal and transverse polarizations. The
piezoelectric materials in the cellular microstructures were designed by barium titanate (BaTiO3) in single phase and bi-phase,
respectively. Fig. 15(c) and 15(d) report the distributions of the piezoelectric energy and energy per relative density with respect
to the acoustic impedance and impedance per relative density, respectively. Other than the thermo-electro-mechanical properties, the
MPM were also studied on the piezoelectric coupling constant and charge coefficient, pyroelectric output, current responsivity, voltage
responsivity, etc. The findings concluded that the reported cellular MPM performed superiorly comparing with the commonly used
honeycomb cellular composites, which shed light on optimizing multifunctional energy harvesters by microstructures.
Fig. 16 reports the kirigami MPM that convert planar piezoelectric materials (i.e., PVDF films) into complex structures through out-
Fig. 15. Cellular MPM [44]. (a) Demonstration of the cellular MPM periodically assembled by the pore microstructures and representative volume
elements. (b) Bi-material MPM components designed in the longitudinal and transverse polarizations. Distributions of the (c) piezoelectric energy
and (d) energy per relative density with respect to the acoustic impedance and impedance per relative density.
22
Fig. 16. Kirigami MPM [146]. (a) PVDF films designed with the center and edge kirigami cuts. (b) Mechanical response of the kirigami MPM with
respect to the cutting pattern. Denser kirigami cuts led to larger voltage output, which also tuned the deformation configurations of the PVDF from
2D to 3D. (c) and (d) Output voltage and strain of the kirigami MPM under different cuts. The strain range was extended without critical loss
of voltage.
of-plane deformations for energy harvesting [146]. Comparing to other piezoelectric materials in the family, PVDF was used due to the
advantages of light weight, low cost, promising mechanical performance, and well biocompatibility. Kirigami metamaterials were used
to improve the functionality (i.e., stretchability and compliance) of the PVDF films. Introducing interdigitated cuts to the PVDF films,
the kirigami MPM behaved significantly extended strain range and well-maintained voltage generation. Fig. 16(a) shows the MPM
obtained using the PVDF films under two types of kirigami cuts (i.e., center and edge). Fig. 16(b) displays the mechanical response of
the kirigami MPM with respect to the cutting pattern. MPM with denser cuts provided larger voltage outputs. The proposed kirigami
MPM enhanced the mechanical and mechanical-to-electrical properties, which also tuned the deformation configuration of the PVDF
films from in-plane 2D to out-of-plane 3D. Fig. 16(c) shows the output voltage and strain of the kirigami MPM under different cuts. The
approximately linear increasing of voltage with the axial strain demonstrates that the strain range can be significantly extended
without critical loss of voltage. Parametric studies in Fig. 16(d) indicated that the influence of the center-cutting kirigami pattern on
the strain range and voltage output of the kirigami MPM.
PENG are the energy harvesters developed to convert mechanical energy into electrical power, which are significantly affected, and
therefore can be effectively improved, by the mechanical characteristics, i.e., stiffness and robustness. Studies have been conducted to
enhance the mechanical characteristics such that to improve the electrical output. The preponderant mechanical performance of
mechanical metamaterials, e.g., stiffness enhancement, full deformation recovery, etc., make them competitive mechanical substrates
for PENG. Planar mechanical metamaterials have been used to improve the energy harvesting efficiency of PENG under low-amplitude
and low-frequency excitations, as shown in Fig. 17 [82,257]. The piezoelectric layer (i.e., poly(trifluoroethylene) PVDF-TrFE) were
grown on the planar mechanical metamaterials to fabricate the planar MPM. Fig. 17(a) reports the planar MPM subjected to the
bilateral constraints to obtain the mechanical instability (i.e., postbuckling) and electrical characteristics (i.e., voltage and peak power)
[82]. The MPM were designed with hexagonal corrugations, which were placed in the sliding cell and fixed by the top and bottom
fixtures. The cell was able to arbitrarily slide in the axial direction, which provided the inertia force to trigger the MPM by the
postbuckling response. The low-frequency ambient excitations (e.g., ocean wave) were converted into high-frequency local excitations
(i.e., postbuckling snap-through), which were eventually converted into electrical energy. Mechanical-to-electrical energy conversion
was investigated with respect to the axial displacement and load resistance. Fig. 17(b) shows the planar MPM in the gyro-structure to
efficiently generate energy under low-frequency and low-amplitude excitations in arbitrary directions [257].
2.3.2. Mechanical triboelectric metamaterials

Structural approach in mechanical metamaterials, i.e., maneuvering the mechanical characteristics by microstructures from the
23
Fig. 17. Planar MPM. (a) Planar mechanical metamaterials designed with hexagonal patterns and grown with the piezoelectric layer (i.e., SiO2 and
PVDF-TrFE). The planar MPM are placed between sliding bi-constraints to obtain postbuckling snap-though, and thus, effectively activate the
piezoelectric layer for energy harvesting [82]. (b) Gyro-structure designed to efficiently trigger the planar MPM under low-frequency and low-
amplitude excitations such as ocean oscillation [257].
structural perspective, has been applied to energy materials to expand their energy harvesting performance, such as designing energy
materials in mechanical metamaterials to generate electrical power. Fig. 18 presents the kirigami MTM designed by the highly
stretchable films of polyurethane (PU) foams and Ag electrode with hierarchically auxetic pattern [85]. Fig. 18(a) illustrates the
structures of the kirigami MTM in the dual-mode. The top triboelectric layer was designed with the PU foams coated on the stretchable
layer of Ag electrode, which consisted of the highly positive triboelectric potentials. The bottom triboelectric layer was designed with
the perfluoroalkoxy (PFA) attached to the layer of Al electrode, which consisted of the highly negative triboelectric potentials. The PU
foams were coated on the hierarchical Ag-PDMS electrode that comprise of PDMS and Ag flakes. The cross-section details the top
triboelectric layer, which consisted of the top layer of PDMS, the middle layer of Ag-PDMS composite electrode, and the bottom layer
of PU foams. No debonding or interferences was reported from the three layers of the kirigami MTM subjected to the extremely tensile
deformation. The ability of continuous and efficient generation of electrical power is of significance to the kirigami MTM, especially for
the ones need to be effective stimulated under lateral and vertical motions in complex applications. Fig. 18(b) shows the deformation
configurations of the kirigami MTM under axial tension in different strains. Dual-mode deformations of contact-separation and
stretching-releasing were observed to demonstrate the well conformability and stretchability. Rotation of the square units under axial
tension resulted in the auxetic behavior of the kirigami MTM, i.e., continuous pattern transformation and biaxial expansion. Fig. 18(c)
indicates different electrical resistance obtained from the hierarchically patterned MTM. The electrode exhibited promisingly stable
electrical resistance under the axial strain up to 50%.
Origami MTM have been developed to generate electrical power by deploying origami metamaterials in TENG. Research attention
has been focused on improving the energy conversion efficiency of the origami MTM by different origami folding strategies, including
the double folding, stripe folding with the zigzag structures, and stripes, Miura, Yoshimura, and waterbomb folding. Fig. 19(a) presents
the origami MTM obtained by the Miura folding technique [147]. Regular valley and peaks lines in the Miura folding were used as the
geometric constraints to obtain the flexible MTM by the relatively rigid energy materials. The deformation was completely caused by
the base folds and all the units were remained undeformed. The origami MTM include the front side that the units were Kapton and
copper, and the back side that were CA, PET and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Kapton was particularly selected as the electro
negativity layer to cover half of the copper units in the front side, and PTFE was designed as the electronegativity layer to cover half of
the copper units in the back side. The deformation configuration of the origami MTM are shown in the Miura folding and the main and
excitation MTM. When the MTM were folded (and released) under pressing, the triboelectric layers contacted (and separated)
accordingly. Fig. 19(b) shows the original and deformed configurations of the origami units and MTM [574]. The origami MTM
adopted folding-induced, planarly microstructural units to transmit 2D triboelectric films into multistable 3D structures with
controllable mechanical deformation. Axially cyclic loading was applied to trigger the conduction and insolation layers of the
triboelectric materials for the mechanoelectrical response with good tunability, which led to the multistable force–displacement
response and controllable mechanoelectrical characteristics.
Cellular metamaterials have been used as the nonconductive frames in the cellular MTM (i.e., conductive-to-nonconductive as
sembly). In particular, the conductive materials are designed by flexibly planar TENG that can be embedded into the nonconductive
frames (i.e., microstructures of the cellular metamaterials), such that the planar TENG can be conformed with the deformation of the
frames. Consequently, those embedded TENG can serve as the energy harvesters or active sensors by converting mechanical excitations
into electrical power. To expand the structural properties to electromechanical output, studies have been conducted on TENG in porous
materials [353-355]. Fig. 20 presents the concept, design principle and electrical output of the cellular MTM [86,88]. Fig. 20(a) shows
the conductive layers encapsulated in the planarly and tabularly cellular metamaterials that were made of elastomeric polymers by 3D
24
Fig. 18. Kirigami MTM [85]. (a) Demonstration of the highly stretchable MTM designed with hierarchical pattern in the dual-mode. The cross-
section details of the top triboelectric layer consist of the PDMS, Ag electrode and PU foams layers. (b) Stretching configurations of the highly
stretchable MTM under different applied strains. (c) Electrical resistance of the stretchable MTM with the axial strain in tension. The inset indicates
the increasing of the resistance under cycling loading.
printing [86]. The triboelectrically conductive layers were conformed to the localized formation of the cellular metamaterials under
axially cyclic loading and the voltage output was obtained accordingly. Fig. 20(b) displays the cellular MTM enabled by TENG in the
contact-separation mode [88]. Following the same principle of the conductive-to-nonconductive assembly, the glycerolized PLA
(gPLA) and Kapton films were compressed to contact by the external moment resulted in bending of the nonconductive cellular
metamaterials.
Fig. 21 shows the energy harvesting performance of the existing mechanical energy metamaterials with respect to the output
voltage and power density [66,81-88,147,257,354,380,382]. Although MTM are generally superior to MPM on the output voltage, the
comparison indicates that the voltages are mainly located in the range of -102 to 102 V. On the contrary, MTM and MPM are found with
comparable power densities. Table 3 summarizes the formation, principle and performance of the mechanical energy metamaterials (i.
e., MPM and MTM) in the literature.
2.3.3. Other types of energy metamaterials

Energy harvesting of metamaterials aims to generate electrical energy from the environment based on various conversion mech
anisms, including kinetic energy such as mechanical vibration and noise, thermal energy such as temperature fluctuation, electro
magnetic radiation, and so on. Energy efficiency is one of the key considerations in energy harvesting. For example, energy harvesting
from mechanical vibration typically requires that energy materials can be triggered under low-frequency excitations (i.e., less than10
Hz). However, this is not commonly feasible in natural materials. The requirements of lightweight and simplicity for energy harvesters
critically increase the challenges of stimulating natural materials under mechanical excitations [359]. Metamaterials provide an
effective tool to address such issue in energy harvesting, which are particularly designed and utilized to improve the energy harvesting
performance from the structural perspectives [360]. For example, electromagnetic metamaterials have been developed to improve the
coupling coefficient with high Q factors by using predesigned structures. Based on the characteristics exhibited in metamaterials (e.g.,
negative permittivity, negative permeability, etc.), optical, acoustic, thermal and electromagnetic metamaterials have been used for
energy harvesting. Fig. 22 presents the principle and design of these energy metamaterials [43,356,358,361,368,372]. Other than
energy harvesting, another potential application of metamaterials for interstellar travel is solar sail attitude control in spacecrafts
[558,559].
Optical metamaterials have performed extraordinary optical properties (e.g., negative reflective index NRI, indefinite permittivity,
etc.), which have been applied in various fields such as photovoltaics and photonics [357,594,601-603]. First, photovoltaic meta
materials take advantage of their surface plasmons to trap light and enhance the absorbance for solar energy harvesting. Critical Ohmic
25
Fig. 19. Origami MTM. (a) Design of the peak and valley lines in the origami MTM by the Miura folding, and the materials used on the front and
back sides. Deformation configuration of the origami MTM and the main and excitation MTM [147]. (b) Design and bistable deformation of the
origami unit under axial loading, and the contact-separation mode of the origami MTM for mechanoelectrical multistability [574].
losses and heating are the main challenges of directly absorbing solar energy in the visible range using plasmonic resonance. The
Shockley–Queisser limit severely restricts the efficiency of photovoltaic materials even neglecting the Ohmic heating from the plas
monic dissipation. To avoid the consequence of plasmonic overheating from visible absorption, various solar thermophotovoltaics
materials have been developed. In recent years, photovoltaic materials have been deployed in metamaterials (e.g., planar photovoltaic
materials designed with periodically surficial microstructures) to efficiently harvest solar energy. Fig. 22(a) illustrates the photovoltaic
metamaterials designed by solar absorbing materials for solar energy harvesting [43]. The metamaterials comprised of the dielectric
spacers with high melting temperature such as aluminum nitride, and low reflectivity refractory metals such as molybdenum or
tungsten. The metamaterials were particularly designed with the rectangular patterns (i.e., 2D array of the square features separated
from the conducting ground plates), where the rectangular patterns were designed by the ultrathin spacer and the plates were typically
metal foils. Next, photonic metamaterials typically comprise of periodically metallic or dielectric microstructures. Metallic or
dielectric materials are capable to obtain the negative phase velocity and have been used in different periodically elastic, fluid and
combined architected structures. Photonic crystals were initial reported in the early 1990 s [369], which have later been applied in the
metamaterials designed with 1D, 2D or 3D spatially topological structures. Special dispersive relation is produced when elastic waves
propagate through photonic metamaterials, where the frequency range without dispersive curves is identified as bandgap [370]. Since
vibration and sound are not able to propagate in it, bandgap (i.e., one of the most critical properties) makes photonic metamaterials
suitable for mechanical filters. Negative effective mass density of photonic metamaterials can be used to explain bandgap in certain
frequency ranges [371]. Negative refraction is considered as another important property in photonic metamaterials, which utilizes
bands beyond the first Brillouin zone under specific frequency [372,373]. Negative refraction focuses on a range of 2D or 3D incident
26
Fig. 20. Cellular MTM. (a) Triboelectrically conductive layers encapsulated in the cellular metamaterials made of elastomeric polymers by 3D
printing. Axially cyclic loading was applied to the cellular MTM and the voltage outputs were obtained accordingly [86]. (b) Cellular MTM enabled
by compressing the gPLA and Kapton films in TENG in the contact-separation mode by the external moment resulted in bending of the noncon
ductive cellular metamaterials [88].
Fig. 21. Energy harvesting performance of mechanical energy metamaterials [66,81-88,147,257,354,380,382]. Comparison of MPM and MTM in
the literature with respect to the output voltage and power density. The output voltage of MTM is generally superior to that of MPM, and the power
densities of MTM and MPM are comparable.
wave vectors. Fig. 22(b) shows the experimental setup of the photonic crystal and supporting substrate with respect to the ultrasonic
transducer and hydrophone, and the focusing condition in the medium with negative refraction. The measured cross sections of the
field pattern are observed in the perpendicular direction to the crystal layers, and the calculated focal pattern is obtained closer to the
crystal surface [372]. Photonic metamaterials take advantage of their bandgap and negative refraction to address the challenges of
low-frequency and broadband limitation in energy harvesting.
Acoustic metamaterials are developed based on the physical phenomenon of local resonances that the phase speeds of constituent
materials are critically lower than those of matrix materials. This is different from photonic crystals that the wavelengths are on the
order of lattice constants in the propagation direction. Acoustic metamaterials were first developed as localized resonant structures
with band gaps to handle the challenge of length-scale in band-gap materials. Fig. 22(c) present the principle of acoustic metamaterials
[361]. Sound is scattered in all directions as a result of propagative radiation when an acoustic wave impinges over the object E. The
evanescent field is concentrated in the near-field of the object, which can be characterized as a wave with high parallel momentum that
exhibits exponential decay with distance [362]. Since microstructures are designed to be smaller than the acoustic wavelengths while
every microstructure has its own mechanical oscillator, acoustic metamaterials typically contain unique properties comparing with
27
Table 3
Formation, principle and performance of the mechanical energy metamaterials (MPM and MTM) in the existing studies.
Type Formation Principle Performance Reference
Excitation Electrical output
MPM • Origami/ • Folding piezoelectric films in origami metamaterials; F = 100 N P = 78.34 μW

[66]
• kirigami • Cutting piezoelectric films in kirigami metamaterials; Pdensity = 43.52 μW/
• Cellular • Coating piezoelectric materials on plate mechanical metamaterials (e. cm2
Voltage = 6.6 V
• Lattice g., metaplates);
f = 32.4 Hz Voltage = 1.1 mV
• Embedding piezoelectric materials in cellular or lattice mechanical [81]
metamaterials; and f < 1 Hz P = 0.065 μW
[82]
• Design mechanical metamaterials by piezoelectric materials Voltage = 90 μV
f = 189 Hz Voltage = 28 V
[83]
F = 700 N P = 5.8 μW
[257]
f = 0.05 Hz Pdensity = 0.7 W/cm2
Voltage = 400 μV
MTM • Origami/ • Folding triboelectric films in origami metamaterials; f = 16 Hz P = 26.16 μW
• kirigami • Cutting triboelectric films in kirigami metamaterials; Voltage = 37.5 V
[84]
• Cellular • Embedding triboelectric materials in cellular or lattice metamaterials; f = 2 Hz P = 3 mW
Lattice and [85]
• Voltage = 320 V
• Design mechanical metamaterials by triboelectric materials. f = 22 Hz P = 0.46 μW
[86]
Pdensity = 0.09 μW/
cm2
Voltage = 2 V
f = 1 Hz P = 0.09 mW
[87]
Pdensity = 16 μW/cm2
Voltage = 0.85 V
f = 10 Hz Voltage = 0.75 V [88]
f = 2 Hz P = 5170 μW
[147]
Voltage = 700.9 V
f = 2 Hz Voltage = 12 V
[354]
F = 70 N Pdensity = 9.36 μW/
[380]
f = 5 Hz cm2
Voltage = 5.2 V
f = 60 Hz Voltage = 5.6 V
[382]
other types of energy metamaterials. Studies have been conducted to investigate the property and performance of acoustic meta
materials. Theoretical models were developed to indicate that negative bulk modulus and mass density can be obtained from acoustic
metamaterials at the same time [363]. Experimental studies were reported on the flat acoustic metamaterial lens designed by the sub-
wavelength Helmholtz resonators under ultrasound waves and 1D arrays of the Helmholtz resonators [364].
Thermal metamaterials have been reported to directly convert heat into electrical power with well efficiency, accuracy, adap
tiveness, tunability and compactness [588]. More recently, thermal metamaterials have been applied to manipulate temperature fields
for advanced computation such as camouflage, concealment, encryption and rectification of the heat signals measured by infrared
cameras or temperature probes [588]. Fig. 22(d) presents the thermophotovoltaic metamaterials designed with the high-temperature
selective emitters, dielectric filters, and 0.6 eV In0.68Ga0.32As photovoltaic cell for converting photon radiation into electrical power
[356]. The passivated platinum and alumina frequency-selective surface were fabricated by the conventional stepper lithography, and
the two additional thermocouples were placed next to the selective emitters, which were epoxied to the exposed heater surface. The
authors obtained the thermal-to-electrical power conversion efficiency of approximately 25% at the temperature of 1055 ◦ C.
Electromagnetic metamaterials are considered as the most well-known energy metamaterials in the entire metamaterial family
since metamaterials were originally developed for electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic metamaterials are designed with sub-
wavelength scale microstructures to obtain the electromagnetic properties that are peculiar in natural materials, which are mainly
dominated by the physical parameters of permittivity ε, permeability μ, and conductivity. Note that the electromagnetic materials with
both negative permittivity and negative permeability are classified as the negative-index or left-handed materials. Studies have been
carried out to maneuver the physical parameters of electromagnetic metamaterials. Thin wires were reported with positive perme
ability and negative permittivity [365] and negative permeability and positive permittivity [366]. Left-handed substance meta
materials were developed to create negative effective permittivity and permeability [367]. Given the unique properties recently
reported (e.g., evanescent wave amplification and negative-refractive index [368]), electromagnetic metamaterials can provide po
tential methods to solve the challenges in electromagnetic energy harvesting. Fig. 22(e) illustrates the multiband electromagnetic
metamaterials coupled by 2D hole array grating [358]. The metamaterials were obtained with well blackbody characteristics for
broadband and narrowband spectra. The 2D metallic hole array diffraction grating was designed in the cylindrical patterns on top of
the electromagnetic metamaterials. Cross-sectional electric field distribution maps were provided on the electromagnetic meta
materials by Pd grading at the mode wavelength of 2.2 µm. Fig. 22(f) presents the negative index metamaterials (NIM) designed with
28
Fig. 22. Other types of energy metamaterials. (a) Photovoltaic metamaterials based on the solar absorbing materials for solar energy harvesting,
which comprise of the dielectric spacers with high melting temperature and low reflectivity refractory metals [43]. (b) Illustrations of the exper
imental setup and focusing condition in a medium with negative refraction. [372]. (c) Principle of acoustic metamaterials that sound is scattered in
all directions as a result of propagative radiation when an acoustic wave impinges over the object. The evanescent field is concentrated in the near-
field of the object, which can be characterized as a wave with high parallel momentum that exhibits exponential decay with distance [361]. (d)
Thermal metamaterials as the selective emitters designed with cylindrical patterns that are mounted on the cartridge heater [356]. (e) Electro
magnetic metamaterials coupled by 2D hole array grating as the multiband absorbers [358]. (f) NIM designed with the split ring resonator elements
and wires deposited lithographically on the opposite sides of a standard circuit board. Comparison of the power detected as a function of the angle
between the Teflon and NIM in the Snell’s law experiment [368].
split ring resonator elements and wires deposited lithographically on the opposite sides of a standard circuit board [368]. A beam of
microwave radiation incident on the prism refracts to the opposite of the surface normal and demonstrate negative refraction. Detected
power is investigated as a function of the angle between the Teflon and NIM in the Snell’s law experiment.
3. Energy challenge and current technology in space exploration
3.1. Advent and development of space exploration
Progress of human civilization is a history of exploration – out of Africa, across oceans, to the skies and into space, which is
particularly fascinated when we look up into the skies and dream about deep space [389,390]. The development of rocket technology
in the second half of the 20th century has brought the possibility into fact that getting rid of gravity and reaching the orbital velocities
by powerful propulsion technology, which has led to the path of space exploration [391]. In recognitions of the first artificial satellites
of Sputnik 1 and Explorer 1 in 1957 and 1958, respectively, current progress of space missions has been expanded from the initial
exploration of the solar system by high-thrust propulsion technologies to the planetary exploration by surface capability technologies
[94,100]. To this end, national aeronautics and space administration (NASA) has been cooperating with its partners to send rovers,
landers and orbiters to Mars to investigate the red planet. For example, Mars 2020, together with ExoMars 2022 by the European space
agency (ESA) [392] and Zhurong by the China national space administration (CNSA) [393], have been successfully landed in the red
planet [101,394].
Fig. 23 demonstrates the progress of space exploration and energy technology during the last half century and the selected space
missions. Currently, space missions have mainly achieved the initial exploration and solar system exploration using the rocket-based
propulsion technologies. Located in the low Earth orbit, international space station has been developed as a multifunctional research
laboratory that services visiting spacecrafts [395]. Various space launch systems, together with a series of expendable launch vehicles,
have been developed to reduce the costs and improve the safety, reliability and reusability in space missions [396]. For the planets or
comets out of the solar system, however, the current rocket propulsion technology has been facing a severe issue of travel time. For
example, Alpha Centauri, the neighboring star system that is only 4.37 light-years away from the Sun, requires tens to hundreds of
29
Fig. 23. Progress of space exploration, energy technology and selected space missions. Space missions developed from the initial and solar
system explorations driven by rocket-based propulsion technology, to the planetary and space explorations enabled by advanced technologies such
as nuclear fusion, antimatter, laser beaming, etc. The estimated velocity can be improved from the level of tens to hundreds of km/s to a significant
fraction of the light speed.
Table 4
Main characteristics and technology readiness level of the selected space missions proposed since 1958.
Space mission Nation Device type Operation type Propulsion Estimated velocity Technology maturity Debut
Orion US Ship Manned Rocket 8.9 km/s Practical 1958

Daedalus UK Interstellar probe Unmanned Fusion rocket 12% c Theoretical 1973
Starwisp US Interstellar probe Unmanned Microwave sail 10% c Conceptual 1985
Longshot US Probe Unmanned Nuclear fusion > 12% c Theoretical 1987
Valkyrie US Ship Manned Antimatter 92% c Theoretical 2009
Icarus UK Probe Unmanned Nuclear fusion – Theoretical 2009
Sundiver Australia Solar probe Unmanned Nuclear – Theoretical 2011
Parker US Solar probe Unmanned Rocket 200 km/s Practical 2019
millennia space travel to reach, let alone the interstellar travel in deep space exploration. According to the current level of chemical
propulsion technology (e.g., ion engines with the exhaust velocity of 200 km/s and payload of 1 g), the onboard fuel requirement to
land Alpha Centauri is nearly 10127 kg - almost the entire mass of the Milky Way [402]. Consequently, stars in the night skies have still
set strict bounds on human curiosity [397,398]. To accomplish planetary and space explorations, it is of necessity to develop advanced
energy and propulsion technologies such as nuclear fusion, antimatter, laser beaming, etc. Rapid technological advances during the
last two decades have shed light on the pathway of light-powered space travel at a significant fraction of the light speed c, e.g., the
estimated velocity can be improved from the level of tens to hundreds of km/s to ~ 10% of c [399-401].
However, the technology readiness level of these advanced approaches is still at the theoretical or conceptual level. Table 4 lists the
main characteristics and technology maturity of the selected space missions proposed since 1958. To compare, Table 5 summarizes the
main active, inactive and failed interplanetary missions launched since 1964 [513]. Although a majority of these interplanetary
missions are currently inactive of failed, it can be seen that the practical aerospace technology with high technology maturity in
Table 4 has generally been deployed in the interplanetary missions. Table 6 lists the distance and estimated characteristics of the
closest star candidates for interstellar travel.
30
Table 5
Main active, inactive and failed interplanetary missions launched since 1964 [513].
Object Mission Launch time Working status
Status Reason for inactive or failure
Earth Transit 4A 1961 Inactive Decommissioned

Transit 4B 1961 Failed Explosion
Transit 5BN-1 1963 Inactive Decommissioned
Transit 5BN-2 1963 Decommissioned
Transit 5BN-3 1964 Failed Memory
Nimbus B-1 1968 Propulsion
Nimbus III 1969 Horizon scanner
Moon Apollo 11 1969 Inactive Decommissioned
Apollo 12 1969 Decommissioned
Apollo 13 1970 Failed Explosion
Apollo 14 1971 Inactive Decommissioned
Mars Mariner 04 (Mars) 1964 Unknown
Mariner 06 (Mars) 1969
Mariner 07 (Mars) 1969
Sojourner Mars Rover 1996
Mariner 09 (Mars) 1971 Inactive Depletion of fuel
Viking 1 (Mars Orbiter) 1975 Depletion of fuel
Viking 1 (Mars Lander) 1975 Failed Software
Viking 2 (Mars Lander) 1975 Battery
Viking 2 (Mars Orbiter) 1975 Propulsion
Mars Observer (TOS-21H) 1992 Propulsion
Mars Global Surveyor 1996 Software
Mars Pathfinder 1996 Battery
Nozomi (Planet B) (Mars) 1998 Propulsion
Mars Climate Orbiter 1998 Software
Mars Exploration Rover A 2003 Environment
Mars Exploration Rover B 2003 Environment
Phoenix Mars Lander/Cruise Stage 2007 Environment
Mars Odyssey Orbiter 2001 Active
Mars Express (F-1) 2003
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter 2005
Mars Curiosity Rover 2011
Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) 2013
ExoMars 1-Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) 2016
Mars Insight 2018
Venus Mariner 02 (Venus) 1962 Inactive Decommissioned
Pioneer 12 (Venus) 1978 Depletion of fuel
Venus Express 2005 Depletion of fuel
Mariner 05 (Venus) 1967 Failed Telemetry, tracking and command
Akatsuki (Planet C) (Venus) 2010 Active
Jupiter Pioneer 10 (Jupiter) 1972 Inactive Depletion of power
Pioneer 11 (Jupiter/Saturn) 1973 Depletion of power
Galileo (Jupiter IUS) 1989 Failed Intentional impact/burn-up
Juno (Jupiter) 2011 Active
Mercury Mariner 10 (Mercury) 1973 Inactive Depletion of fuel
Messenger (Mercury) 2004 Depletion of fuel
Saturn Cassini (Saturn) 1997 Inactive Depletion of fuel
Pluto New Horizons 1 (Pluto) 2006 Active
Pioneer Pioneer 8 (Pioneer C) 1967 Unknown
Pioneer 5 (P-2) 1960 Inactive Decommissioned
Pioneer 6 (Pioneer A) 1965 Decommissioned
Pioneer 7 (Pioneer B) 1966 Decommissioned
Pioneer 9 (Pioneer D) 1968 Failed Unknown
Explorer Explorer 33 (IMP D) 1966 Unknown
Explorer 50 (IMP J) 1973
Explorer 47 (IMP H) 1972 Inactive Decommissioned
Helios Helios 1 (NASA) 1974 Unknown
Helios 2 (NASA) 1976 Failed Telemetry, tracking and command
Voyager Voyager 1 1977 Active
Voyager 2 1977
IUS Ulysses (IUS) 1990 Inactive Depletion of power
Magellan (IUS) 1989 Failed Intentional impact/burn-up
STEREO STEREO Ahead 2006 Active
STEREO Behind 2006 Failed Guidance and control
(continued on next page)
31
Table 5 (continued )
Object Mission Launch time Working status
Status Reason for inactive or failure
Bepi-Columbo Bepi-Colombo - MMO (MIO-JAXA) 2018 Active

Bepi-Colombo - MPO (ESA) 2018
Bepi-Colombo - MTM (ESA) 2018
Others Giotto 1985 Inactive Depletion of fuel
Suisei 1985 Depletion of fuel
Stardust/NExT 1999 Depletion of fuel
Spitzer Space Telescope 2003 Decommissioned
Rosetta 2004 Depletion of power
Dawn 2007 Depletion of fuel
Kepler (NASA) 2009 Depletion of fuel
NEAR Shoemaker 1996 Failed Extreme temperature
Beagle 2 2003 Unknown
Philae Minilab Lander 2004 Telemetry, tracking and command
EPOXI (Deep Impact) 2005 Software
Maven 2013 Active
Hayab USA 2 2014
Osiris Rex/Sample Return 2016
Parker Solar Probe 2018
3.2. Characteristics and challenges in the cosmic environment
The cosmic environment is one of the mainly severe, if not the severest, challenges for the current propulsion and energy tech
nologies in space exploration. Space exploration generally refers to travel through interstellar medium to explore stars, i.e., the ma
jority of interstellar travel is in the cosmic environment surrounded by gravitationally attached materials between stars [514]. The
universe is extremely sparse and far from uniform, especially for the interstellar medium that consists of dust, charged particles such as
electrons and ions, and neutral gas. Although the cosmic environment is sparse, interstellar materials diffusely contain all the elements
in the periodic table, including the most commonly cosmic rays, cosmic radiation consisted of thermoelectric, electromagnetic and
nuclear radiations, and cosmic dust grains, as shown in Table 7 [515]. These cosmic materials are mainly created from stellar winds
and nova explosion, where the organic materials in dense molecular clouds are sheltered in interstellar dust grains. Cosmic rays contain
the diverse elements of approximately 89% of hydrogen protons, 10% helium, and 1% heavier elements, which are the ionized atoms
accelerated to an extremely high energy state. Galactic cosmic rays (GCR) have the energies between 100 MeV and 10 GeV, the former
corresponds to the protons at 43% c and the latter is about 0.996c. The heavier elements in interstellar medium (e.g., carbon, iron,
magnesium, oxygen and silicon) are found with similar amounts as them in the solar system. Interstellar thermoelectric and elec
tromagnetic radiations are very weak such as ~ 10− 10 T in the Milky Way galaxy, which consist of sparse high-energy gamma rays from
the stellar events nearby. Cosmic dust grains are typically pushed out from stellar coronas by stellar wind. Since cosmic dust grains are
considered as the main collision hazard for spacecrafts, it is necessary to design energy dissipation and shielding components in space
exploration [515,516]. On the contrary, the high-speed cosmic dust grains are considered as an effective energy source that provides
nanoscale spacecrafts with abundantly kinetic energy, which can be converted into electrical energy to power nanodevice systems.
As an example of the cosmic environment in the solar system, the heliosphere (i.e., a low-density bubble generated by the solar
wind of the Sun) exists to shield the influences of energetic particles, local interstellar medium, plasma and small dust grains. Flowing
at the speed of 25 km/s to the Sun, the interstellar medium creates the heliosphere with the heliotail extension that is hundreds of
Table 6
Distance and estimated characteristics of the closest star candidates for interstellar travel.
Distance (Light year) Estimated characteristics
Alpha Centauri 4.3 • Closest to the Sun

• A three-star system (G2, K1 and M5)
• Component A (G2) is similar to the Sun
• Component B consists of two stars
Barnard’s Star 6 • Second closest to the Sun
• Small and low-luminosity M5 red dwarf
Sirius 8.7 • Large and bright A1 star
• Company with a white dwarf star
Epsilon Eridani 10.8 • Single K2 star
• Slightly smaller and colder than the Sun
• Consist of two asteroid belts and may possess a planetary system
Tau Ceti 11.8 • Single G8 star similar to the Sun
• May possess a planetary system similar to solar
• Consist of five planets and possibly two more in the habitable zone
32
Table 7
Characteristics of the main components in the cosmic environment and their challenges to space exploration [515].
Components Characteristics Challenges
Cosmic rays ~89% hydrogen, 10% helium and 1% heavier elements High energy from
100 MeV to 10 GeV
Cosmic radiation Thermoelectric Very weak No critical influence
Electromagnetic Very weak No critical influence
Nuclear Weak Limited influence
Cosmic dust grains Near the light speed c Highly energetic collision
Fig. 24. Comparison of the average matter density ρm and average radiation temperature T for the interstellar medium in the solar system over the
course of all time. [518].
astronomical units (AU) beneath the Sun. The heliosphere of the solar system can be characterized as [517]: 1) bow shock is created as
the solar system travels in the interstellar medium at the hypersonic velocities; 2) solar materials and fields are separated from the
interstellar medium at the heliopause around 150 AU from the Sun; 3) solar wind speed is decreased from the supersonic to subsonic
velocities at the termination shock 75–90 AU from the Sun; and 4) interstellar hydrogen gas is piled before the heliosphere to create the
hydrogen wall.
Fig. 24 compares the average matter density ρm and radiation temperature T of the solar system over the course of all time. The
shadowed line of ρm refers to the considerable uncertainty range of the matter density while the solid line of the temperature T has been
accurately measured [518]. The temperature of the universe is ununiform and most space is extremely cold. The diffuse interstellar
medium is typically dominated by neutral hydrogen atoms at the temperature of around 80 K. The cosmic life cycle starts when the
interstellar medium is first evolved into translucent cloud and then dense interstellar molecular cloud with the temperatures as low as
10 K, where molecular hydrogen and other molecular species are found. Dense cloud collapses into even denser cores to form central
stars that are found with the temperature gradients from 10 to several thousand K [514]. Unless getting adequately close to the stars on
the way in interstellar travel, it is consequently difficult to generate electrical power from the thermal energy in the cosmic
environment.
3.3. Propulsion technology and power demand in space exploration
3.3.1. Main propulsion technology in space exploration

Fig. 25 summarizes the speed growth history of typical transportation facilities developed since the 19th century (e.g., train, car,
airplane, rocket and probe) [103]. Travel time required to complete the journal to Alpha Centauri – the closest star that is 4.37 light
years from the Sun, is estimated based on the velocity of the transportation facilities. Although an approximately linear speed growth
has been observed from the development history of the facilities, tens of thousands of years are still needed to achieve the closest star.
As a consequence, it is of necessity to develop a new paradigm of propulsion to accomplish space exploration within a rational time
period. Given the extremely large travel distance in space exploration, potential propulsion technologies have been proposed as nu
clear fusion, antimatter or directed energy propulsion. Table 8 compares the technological characteristics of the main propulsion
technologies and their applicability for interstellar travel. Laser beaming propulsion has been proposed to address the severe challenge
in chemical propulsion [106,401,403]. Laser propulsion for light-beamed, nanoscale lightsails have been considered as the technology
with relatively low technology maturity comparing with other propulsion technologies. Nanosails are at the milli- to centimeter scale
in size and gram-scale in weight, which are propelled by 2.8 km and 100 GW Earth-based laser beams for 10 mins, particularly from the
highly elliptical orbit with a 6 × 104 km perigee and ceasing at 1.5 × 107 km [104]. The light power of each perfectly collimated beam
33
Fig. 25. Speed growth history and travel time to reach the closest star from the Sun. Speed growth history of typical transportation facilities
developed since the 19th century and the estimated travel time required to complete the journal to Alpha Centauri – the closest star that is 4.37 light
years from the Sun) [103].
is required as 300 MW/N, which will be reduced to half if the light beam can be reflected off the nanocrafts. High energy density is
necessary for the laser power source to provide a reasonable thrust to accelerate a feasible weight. Comparing with the rocket pro
pulsion or pulse propulsion technologies, nanosails driven by the laser beam could potentially achieve a higher travel speed. Aiming to
send micro/nanoscale interstellar spacecrafts to the neighboring planets beyond the solar system, nanocrafts are expected to para
digmatically change the approach of conducting space exploration due to the highest ~ 20% of the light speed c by Earth-based laser
radiation pressure [401]. The nanocrafts start traveling toward the targets at the ~ 20% c and will complete a journal of several light
years in decades. To compare the velocity and demonstrate the significance of travel speed in space exploration at the cosmic scale,
Voyager 1 has been traveling at the speed of 35,000 km/hr for 44 years to just reach the edge of the heliosphere. Even if Voyager 1 can
be well maintained to keep its functionality and electrical power during the rest of the journal, it will take the spacecraft another 8 ×
104 years to reach Alpha Centauri [103].
3.3.2. Power demand and current battery technology

Power demand of space exploration can be categorized with respect to the velocity of spacecraft in the acceleration phase and
constant-speed phase. The acceleration phase aims to increase the velocity of spacecrafts in launching, which has significantly more
power demand comparing with the constant-speed phase in the cosmic environment. Traditional propulsion technologies of space
exploration result in a severe issue on power demand. For example, accelerating a one-ton spacecraft to 1/10c using the current rocket
propulsion technology requires the power of at least 125 TWh (i.e., 450 PJ or 4.5 x1017 J), even neglecting the energy conversion loss.
The entire energy consumption was 1.73 × 105 TWh worldwide in the year of 2019 [543], which leads to the fact that it is likely to
consume nearly 1/1400 of the annually global energy consumption to accelerate a traditional spacecraft to the velocity of 1/10c. As a
consequence, it is too much to tolerate the power demand of space exploration using the current rocket technology.
Fig. 26 compares the physical characteristics of the current launch platforms and their launching and landing difficulties in the
process of pre-launch/launch, transit, planet orbit/descent and planet surface. Reported as the nanosatellites launch platforms with the
features of modularity, short development cycle and relatively low cost, cubesat, unisat and tubesat have become the main platform
technologies in recent years. For example, cubesat can be docked to rockets through standardized launchers due to their well flexibility
and straightforward loading mode, which has launched more than 900 devices into the Earth orbit until 2019 [519]. To complete the
missions in the cosmic environment, nanocrafts need to be designed with three main function modules, i.e., Earth-based laser beams,
nanosails, and embedded interstellar communication systems [108]. Initially, the nanosails are directly powered by the laser beams in
the Earth to accelerate the nanocrafts in the acceleration phase. Next, the nanosails and communication systems are remained
functional by the nanocraft’s energy solution in the long-term travel in the constant-speed phase. The constant-speed phase aims to
maintain or control the velocity of a spacecraft in the cosmic travelling, which consumes the energy either generated from the on-board
stored energy materials or from the interstellar medium through energy harvesting. Since mass and size are the critical considerations
that severely increase the difficulty of launching space devices and conducting space travel, nanocrafts are designed with multi
functional nanodevice modules to address the challenges. Therefore, power demand is one of the most challenging issues for nanocrafts
and the feasibly solution for space exploration is to generate electrical power from the interstellar medium [96].
In the application history of battery energy in spacecrafts, aqueous-based technologies played an important role in the early stage
34
Table 8
Technological characteristics of main propulsion technologies and their applicability for interstellar travel.
Propulsion Technology Example Interstellar travel
Maturity
Category Technology Applicability Reason/challenges
Chemical Chemical reaction Flight proven Chemical reaction driven thermal Likely no Energy density limited
propulsion propulsion
Solar Solar photon Functional Solar photon pressure momentum Likely no Characteristic
propulsion verification driven thrust for reflective sail material acceleration limitation
Solar electric Flight proven Solar power-driven electric thruster Likely no Solar power range
limitation
Nuclear Nuclear electric Application Fission power-driven electric thruster Likely no Energy density
propulsion formulated limitation
Nuclear thermal Functional Nuclear driven thermal propulsion Likely no Energy density
verification limitation
Nuclear fusion Application Nuclear fusion driven thermal Maybe yes Low technology
formulated propulsion maturity
Antimatter Antimatter annihilation Application Antimatter annihilation driven Maybe yes Low technology
propulsion formulated propulsion maturity
Directed Directed energy photon or Application Directedly light-beamed lightsails Maybe yes Low technology
propulsion particle propulsion formulated maturity
(e.g., silver-zinc batteries in Sputnik and zinc-mercury oxide batteries in Explorer). Battery chemistry technologies are critical in space
exploration, especially when solar and other energy sources are limited and unideal [96,409,430]. Li-based battery systems, consisted
of Li-SO2 or Li-SOCl2 with liquid cathodes or Li-CFx, dominate the battery technologies in recent space missions due to the advantages
of higher specific energy, higher voltage, larger operating temperature range and longer usage time [410]. In particular, Li-SO2 is
considered as the most extensively used aerospace battery systems, in which Li metal serves as the anode and sulfur dioxide dissolved
in lithium bromide in acetonitrile is the catholyte. Sulfur dioxide is decreased when discharge product is formed from insoluble lithium
dithionate by carbon cathode current collectors. Li-SOCl2 uses SOCl2 contained LiAlCl4 salt as the cathode and lithium as the anode.
Spirally wound designs have been developed in Li-SO2 and Li-SOCl2 to obtain high specific energy, high pulse power capability, low
voltage delay, long usage time (e.g., up to 10 years), and relatively good low-temperature performance (e.g., until 40 ℃) [411]. Li-CFx
uses fluorinated carbon as the solid cathode in the electrolyte that contains 1 M LiBF4 dissolved in γ-butyrolactone (GBL) or propylene
carbonate (PC) or dimethoxyethane (DME) blend, which has the specific energy as high as ~ 700 Wh/kg at the rate of C/5.
Fig. 26. Comparison of the small launch platforms. Physical characteristics of the small launch platforms of cubesat, unisat and tubesat and their
launching and landing difficulties in the process of pre-launch/launch, transit, planet orbit/descent and planet surface [519-521].
35
Fig. 27. Component and mechanism of the Li-ion battery [522]. Advanced electrolyte with additives is used to have flame-retardance and stability
at high voltages without sacrificing the charging performance, silicon nanoparticles are designed with Li ions to improve the capacity over carbon
standard, optimized solid-electrolyte interface layer is designed to mitigate irreversible capacity, and layered Li(LiNMC)O2 cathode particles are
mixed to vary the composition and morphology for higher capacity and charging rate.
Rechargeable batteries have been applied in various Mars orbiter mission over the past several decades, which are designed based on
the technologies of Ag-Zn, Ni-Cd, Ni-H2 and Li-ion chemistry. The Ni-H2 technology is currently in use in the missions of Mars Odyssey
and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In recent years, Li-ion has become the most extensively used aerospace battery technology in nearly
all the space missions [412]. Li-ion typically comprises of lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) as the cathode, coke-type carbon as the anode,
and organic electrolyte contained 1.0 M LiPF6 in PC and diethyl carbonate (DC). Launched by ESA in 2001, PROBA is the first Earth
orbiting mission utilized Li-ion as the main battery power, which has been operating for two decades. To enhance the electrical
performance of Li-ion batteries, the alternative technology has been proposed to use the customized prismatic cells, e.g., custom
electrolytes to support wider temperature operation [412]. The prismatic cells are commonly applied in battery management systems
such that the individual cells can be controlled, monitored, and adjust in the battery array [413]. Li-ion battery systems can be used in
the space missions that require a wide range of temperature.
Fig. 27 demonstrates the main components and mechanism of the Li-ion battery [522]. The lithiated mixed-metal-oxide cathodes
were applied due to the well temperature stability for high voltage operation (i.e., over the operating voltage window of 4.8 to 2.5 V).
The stoichiometry was determined to provide high specific capacity, low irreversible capacity loss, and well rate capability [522].
Currently, the batteries in the mission of Mars Exploration Rover behave 180 mAh/g at 0 ◦ C and C/10. However, low temperature in
the cosmic environment is a severely challenge to the Li-ion battery, which resulted in ~ 30% capacity reduction at 0 ◦ C comparing
with that at the room temperature. Let alone the average temperature of 3 K in the interstellar travel. Table 9 summarizes the ap
plications of the commonly chemical and rechargeable battery technologies in the space missions launched by NASA and ESA [96,502-
508]. Given the microscale size and microgram level mass of the nanocrafts in the decade-long interstellar travel, several sustainable
Table 9
Applications of the commonly chemical and rechargeable battery technologies in the space missions launched by NANA [96] and ESA [502-508].
NASA ESA
Chemical Battery Li-SO2 Probe • Galileo One Galileo

• Huygens 2
Sample return capsules • Genesis Stardust
• Stardust
Lander Mars Exploration Rover Mars Polar Lander
Li-SOCl2 Probe • Mars Sojourner Rover Venus Entry
• Mars Deep Space 2
Space mission Deep Impact Exobiology
Li-CFx Space mission Hayabusa Venus missions
Rechargeable battery Ni-H2 Mars Orbiter • Mars Odyssey • Mars Telecom Orbiter
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter • Mars Global Surveyor
Li-ion Probe PROBA missions Voyage 2050
36
Fig. 28. Principles and performance of nuclear, thermoelectric and photovoltaic batteries. (a) Working principle and typical structure of the
radioluminescent nuclear battery designed with the excitation source fluorescent layer and photovoltaic modules [525]. (b) Working principle of the
thermoelectric battery based on the Seebeck effect [531]. (c) Illustration of the photovoltaic battery in a DC coupled system consisted of the power
direction and sign convention of the generated power, battery charge or discharge power, electrical load, self-consumption, feed-in power, and grid
power [530].
energy technologies have been proposed to generate electrical power from the cosmic environment such as the nuclear battery [523-
525], thermoelectric battery [407], photovoltaic battery [530], as well as charging from the theoretical Biermann battery [526] and
cosmic battery [527,528] based on the magnetic fields in the interstellar space. Nuclear battery is considered as a significant type of
indirect energy conversion, which has attracted wide attention due to the high energy density, long lifespan, well stability, etc. [525].
For example, nuclear battery using the β-decay of nickel-63 (Ni63) was reported with the conditions of the weight as 250 mg, overall
size as 4 mm, life time as 50 years, electrical power as 1 µW and power density as 10 µW/cm3 [529]. The nuclear battery based on the
α-decay of americium-241 (Am241) and β-decay of Ni63 were reported with the power density of 1.25 and 2.04 nW/cm2 [523].
Fig. 28 demonstrates the principles and performance of nuclear, thermoelectric and photovoltaic batteries in the existing studies.
Fig. 28(a) illustrates the radioluminescent nuclear battery designed with the photovoltaic module and fluorescent layer [525]. The
energy conversion mechanism of the battery contains three categories, i.e., radioisotope due to spontaneous decay, photovoltaic effect
and radioluminescent. Optimizing the three combined categories, the electrical output of the radioluminescent nuclear battery can be
improved. Fig. 28(b) presents the principle and mechanism of thermoelectric battery [531]. Thermoelectric battery aims to take
37
advantage of the frontal surface heat during the interaction between the lightsails and interstellar media. The surface heat supply is
estimated at a rate of 6 mW/cm2, which offers a desirable the thermoelectric energy source during the interstellar cruising phase [407].
Thermoelectric power generation is likely to happen to all forms of heat sources based on the Seebeck effect. Thermocouple pairs are
the fundamental units of thermoelectric battery, which are typically made of a series of p- and n-type of thermoelectric materials in
metal electrodes. When the two ends of thermocouple arms experience a temperature difference, the holes in the p-material and the
electron in the n-material move to the cold end, which leads to the generation of electrical voltage at the ends of the materials. The
voltage inhibits further diffusion of the electrons to the cold end until the net flow of the electrons in the materials stops. In the entire
process, the voltage at the ends of the thermoelectric materials becomes stable, which can be connected to the external circuit to supply
power. Fig. 28(c) schematically illustrates photovoltaic battery in a DC coupled system consisted of the power direction and sign
convention of generated power, battery charge or discharge power, electrical loads, self-consumption, feed-in power, and grid power
[530]. Photovoltaic battery aims to generate electricity from stars by ultrathin photovoltaic materials coated to nanosails, which is
particularly efficient when the nanocrafts approach to stars, e.g., 2 kW of electrical power can be generated when the nanosails are
within 1 AU of the target star. Typical photovoltaic battery systems can be categorized as DC or AC coupled power based on their
system configurations. In the DC coupling energy storage system, photovoltaic plants are typically joined together on the DC side of the
system and the battery is connected to the intermediate DC circuit of the photovoltaic inverter.
However, it is worthwhile to point out that the current battery technologies are found with inevitable shortcomings. On the one
hand, the non-renewability of nuclear materials severely limits the lifespan of nuclear battery, let alone the dysfunctionality of
electronic micro/nanodevices resulted in possible nuclear pollution, which have to be considered in the easily hundred to thousand
years of interstellar travel. On the other hand, interstellar space is extremely cold and sparse in general (see Fig. 24), which leads to the
difficulty for nanocrafts to accurately reach thermal radiations and generate thermoelectric power in the majority of the long-term
journey [398,408]. As a consequence, a rechargeable energy solution such as generating electrical power from the energy sources
in the cosmic environment is significant to nanocrafts in interstellar travel.
4. Emerging mechanical energy metamaterials in interstellar travel
To maintain the functionality of spacecrafts in interstellar travel, it is necessary to generate electrical power from the interstellar
energy sources through mechanical energy metamaterials. Mechanical energy metamaterials generate electrical power from the
environment, and thus, working place plays a dominant role in the energy harvesting efficiency. To effectively trigger mechanical
energy metamaterials in the cosmic environment, the structural and material components are critical in mechanical energy meta
materials. It is challenging to rationally design the energy materials (e.g., ultrathin triboelectric, piezoelectric or photovoltaic
nanofilms) in the architected structures (e.g., complexly periodic microstructures in the nanofilms) to generate the electrical power
that is otherwise negligible. Mechanical energy metamaterials have rarely been used as an alternative for the current energy solutions
in interstellar travel, the challenges can be summarized as how to design, characterize and harness the metamaterial nanosails to obtain
desirable electrical performance in the specific application. Fig. 29 illustrates the development history of space missions, category of
Fig. 29. Development history of space missions, category of metamaterials and main energy sources in the cosmic environment. Devel
opment history of space missions from landing on the Moon in the end of 1960 s, space shuttles since the 1980 s, international space station mainly
since the 2000 s, solar system exploration, to the development trend of space exploration, and the categories of metamaterials from electromagnetic,
optical, acoustic to mechanical metamaterials. Main types of energy sources in the cosmic environment from thermoelectric, nuclear and elec
tromagnetic radiations to cosmic rays.
38
metamaterials [421,422], and summarizes the main energy sources in the cosmic environment that are available for energy harvesting.
Hallmarks of space technology development in human history are demonstrated from landing on the Moon in the end of 1960 s, space
shuttles since the 1980 s and international space station since the 2000 s to solar system exploration, and the future trend of space
technology is outlooked in space exploration. Metamaterials can be categorized as electromagnetic [49], optical [14,423], acoustic
[424,425] and mechanical metamaterials [426-428], and the four types of energy sources available for energy harvesting in the cosmic
environment are thermoelectric, nuclear and electromagnetic radiations and cosmic rays.
4.1. Applications of energy materials in interstellar travel
4.1.1. Energy sources in the cosmic environment

Energy sources in the cosmic environment mainly include the cosmic rays, cosmic radiations (i.e., nuclear, thermoelectric and
electromagnetic radiations) and cosmic dust grains (see Table 7) [532,533]. As a significant energy source, cosmic rays are mainly due
to electromagnetic radiation and high-speed charged particles [516]. In the galaxy, GCR are a type of chronic energy source consisted
of most light-to-heavy nuclei from hydrogen to iron with the energy from 100 MeV to 1 TeV, which are accelerated by the large
magnetic fields of blackholes or other galactic events. Charged particles can be categorized with respect to the energy per nucleon
(MeV/n), and the high-speed nuclei (i.e., high charge and energy ions) are the ones with more protons than helium. These high charge
and energy ions stripped of electrons can permeate into free space and travel for relatively large distances through materials. GCR have
been considered as a severely potential risk for space exploration since they contain the energy up to 1 GeV, and thus, are difficult to be
stopped by shielding materials in the cosmic environment [516]. In general, cosmic rays caused by the explosive events in the universe
such as supernova are found as a continuous background of radiation in the space, which are formed by the nuclei of chemical elements
(e.g., hydrogen to uranium) accelerated to extremely high energy. The cosmic rays are reported with broad energy spectra from nearly
10 MeV/n to almost 50 GeV/n, and their most critical chemical elements are nickel (Z = 28) due to the significant decreasing of
abundance for the ions heavier than iron (Z = 26). Fig. 30(a) displays the modification of the free-space cosmic rays after passing
Fig. 30. Main energy sources in the cosmic environment. (a) Relative contribution to fluence, dose, and dose equivalent of different elements in the
free-space cosmic ray environment in the year of 1976 with the solar minimum conditions [534]. (b) Comparison of the electrical power level
between the main energy technology in the cosmic environment during the time period of 10 years [535]. (c) Bar chart comparison of the specific
heat capacity between the most used engineering materials [536]. (d) Dust grains combined with ice particles to absorb and scatter cosmic radiation
and re-emit the absorbed energy at longer wavelengths in the cosmic environments [514].
39
through spacecraft materials due to the internal environment of primary and secondary radiations resulted in the atomic and nuclear
interactions [534]. Although the contributions of heavy ions to dose and dose equivalent are significant in free space and behind light
shields, they are dominated by protons and light ions behind typical spacecraft shielding. In the element distributions of the cosmic ray
particles, protons are approximately 87% of the entire flux, helium ions are 12% and the remaining heavy ions are less than 1%.
Considering the solar system, for example, the cosmic ray flux is reduced by the solar wind in a cycle period of approximate 11-year due
to the inversely correlation with the solar activity. In particular, the cosmic ray flux can be reduced to 1/3 ~ 1/4 at the maximum
activity of the solar system in the cycle, comparing to 1/2 of the flux at the solar minimum [534].
Nuclear radiation has been considering as a cutting-edge energy source, especially for the microscale devices with a long lifespan.
Directly conversing power from high intensity ionizing radiation has been reported as a key element in the nuclear systems for the next-
generation space devices. For example, the absorbed solar power of a nuclear radiator is approximately 40–80 W/m2 under the solar
radiation of 800 W/m2, which leads to a 5–10% solar absorption rate [532]. Since nuclear energy has well efficiency in providing
electrical power for the spacecrafts at the multiscale, nuclear batteries and reactors have been proposed as the competitive energy
sources for space exploration. Based on nuclear batteries and reactors, many nuclear energy systems have been developed for
continuous operations over two decades, which have the average power output from 1 to 10 MW. In particular, microscale inter
mediate neutron reactors are developed as one of the most compact technologies for nuclear energy. Fig. 30(b) compares the electrical
power level of typical energy technologies in the cosmic environment during the time period of 10 years [535]. Nuclear fission is
concluded as the energy source with the highest power level comparing with all other types of energies. Chemical energy tends to be
comparable to nuclear fission at the beginning (i.e., during the first month), which, however, is severely decreased afterwards.
Radioisotope power systems have been developed to generate electrical energy by converting the heat released from the nuclear decay
of radioactive isotopes, e.g., Plutonium-238 (Pu238) [535]. However, it is necessity to point out that the majority of the nuclear energy
harvesting is based on the nuclear materials carried by the spacecrafts, rather than directly generating from the nuclear radiation in the
cosmic environment.
Thermoelectric radiation, in essence, is a type of electromagnetic radiation resulted in the random charge fluctuations of materials.
which is generally associated with the surfaces and/or volumes of materials under a finite temperature. Thermal radiation is prin
cipally dependent on the energy released by the oscillations of electrons constituting materials and those oscillations are, in turn,
sustained by the internal energy of the materials [532]. When the materials are in the condition of thermal equilibrium at certain
temperature, charges of the materials (e.g., ions for polar materials, free electrons for metals, etc.) experience arbitrarily thermal
motions and radiate fluctuating electromagnetic fields [533]. Enabled by collecting and storing thermal radiation, thermal energy by
temperature-sensible materials tends to play a role in energy harvesting of self-powered devices and systems in the cosmic environ
ment [536]. Thermal materials can be identified as the materials that experience no phase change in the temperature fluctuation
during the entire energy harvesting process. The energy capability of thermal materials significantly depends on their energy density
(i.e., heat capacity per unit volume), and therefore, it is of necessity for the thermal materials to have a relatively good energy density
in the cosmic environment. On the contrary, phase change materials (e.g., liquid–solid transitions) are considered as an efficient
alternative of thermal materials. To compare with the thermal materials that have no phase change, the phase change materials can be
functionalized under a relatively small temperature change between charging and discharging, mainly due to their higher energy
densities. To date, more than 150,000 thermal materials have been reported, mainly characterizing into four categories: alloys and
metals, elastomers and polymers, glasses and ceramics, and hybrids consisted of natural and composite materials. Fig. 30(c) compares
the specific heat capacity of the most used engineering materials [536]. Natural and polymeric materials are found with the highest
heat capacity such as natural rubber or acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). To compare, other composite materials (e.g., glass fiber
reinforced epoxies or concrete) have the capacity of approximately 1 kJ/kgK.
Cosmic dust grains are considered as the collision hazard for space exploration, and it is necessary to consider the collision and
design energy dissipation and shielding components for spacecrafts [515,516]. Carbonaceous and siliceous materials are the main
materials in cosmic dust grains and many other kinds of solids (e.g., carbides, metallic oxides, sulfides and even metals) are found as
minor. The temperatures commonly drop to approximately 10–20 K with the increasing of the density. Dust grains are found at the
microscale which may be increased to the millimeter scale during protostellar envelopes or planet-forming disks (i.e., circumstellar
media of young stars). Fig. 30(d) illustrates the dust grains combined with ice particles to absorb and scatter cosmic radiation and re-
emit the absorbed energy at longer wavelengths in the cosmic environments [514]. For example, nearly 30–50% of the light emitted by
the Galaxy is absorbed by the dust grains, which is re-radiated as the far infrared (FIR) continuum emission. On the contrary, these
high-speed cosmic dust grains are considered as an effective energy source, which provide nanoscale spacecrafts with abundantly
kinetic energy that can be converted into electrical energy to power their nanodevice systems. Kinetic energy from potential comic dust
grains collision and light energy from cosmic radiation are proposed as the potential sources for energy harvesting in the cosmic
environment. Near light speed interstellar travel has to face the collision with cosmic dust grains, where the tiny dust grains behave like
energetic cosmic rays when collide with microscale interstellar devices travel at 0.3c [515]. Cosmic dust grains result in high energetic
collision to nanocrafts in space exploration, which can be used an energy source under certain circumstance. The kinetic energy from
these dust grains is enormous comparing with the energy generated from the current microscale power production technologies. For
instance, a relative kinetic energy of 3.75 × 107 GeV can be generated by colliding with the carbonaceous dust grains with the diameter
of approximately 1/10 µm. As a consequence, it is necessary to avoid of permanent damages from direct collision on the devices.
Instead of redirecting or stopping these dust grains in near light speed space exploration, it is more interesting to effectively absorb the
high kinetic energy.
Electromagnetic radiation can be conceptually demonstrated by the blackbody that absorbs all types of the radiation rays
geometrically reaching it. Blackbody is likely to emit the largest amount of energy from the same spectral and angular ranges
40
comparing with all the objects that have the same size and temperature [533]. Depending on the magnetic and dielectric properties,
the Poynting vector and energy density of blackbody can significantly exceed the electromagnetic radiation, although the fluctuating
electric or magnetic fields are averagely zero due to their random nature. Characterizing as the photon tunneling in the near field of
electromagnetic radiation, the evanescent electromagnetic radiation is exponentially decayed from the interface, which is coupled to
contain a large portion of energy over the interface when the distance of two objects is smaller than the characteristic wavelength of the
thermal radiation between them. Photo tunneling, together with other near field effects such as surface polaritons and interference,
explains the enhanced energy transfer in the near field. Note that the far field properties of nanostructured objects or surfaces can be
changed by these near field effects as well, in which, however, the transmittance and emissivity cannot exceed the unity regardless the
complexity of the objects or surfaces [533].
4.1.2. Performance, limitation and potential solution

Space exploration is expected to be accomplished with rational funding allocation and timetable, which is, however, affected by
different technological limitations related to the generation, conversion, storage and distribution of electrical power systems [537].
The unique cosmic environment challenges the design and selection of effective power systems. Power requirement of space explo
ration is significantly varied with the objectives and application scenarios. Comparing with the power requirement of maintaining the
functionalities of a spacecraft over long-term interstellar travel, it is challengeable to develop the power systems to supply adequately
electrical power for an occupant habitation system on planetary surfaces, including in-situ resource utilization to produce liquid oxygen
on the surface, communications, surface construction, transportation and exploration. For example, two types of occupancy strategies
have been proposed to explore the planetary surfaces of the Moon and Mars, i.e., the permanent and intermittent occupancies.
Fig. 31 shows the permanent occupancy designed with the lunar and Mars outposts in the evolutionary phases of emplacement,
consolidation and operation, and the intermittent occupancy designed with the five evolutionary phases of lunar emplacement, lunar
consolidation, lunar operation or demonstration, Mars expedition, and Mars emplacement [537]. Each phase is explained by a specific
set of objectives, functionalities and milestones. The power sources of the permanent and intermittent occupancies can be mainly
divided into the stationary and mobile powers. The stationary power sources refer to the power systems that generate power for the
Fig. 31. Permanent and intermittent occupancy strategies for exploring the planetary surfaces of the Moon and Mars. The permanent occupancy is
designed with the lunar and Mars outposts in the evolutionary phases of emplacement, consolidation and operation with specific sets of objectives,
functionalities and milestones, and the intermittent occupancy is envisioned for the evolutionary phases of lunar emplacement, lunar consolidation,
lunar operation or demonstration, Mars expedition, and Mars emplacement [537].
41
Fig. 32. Requirements of cumulative stationary power [537]. The requirements of the (a) lunar and (b) Mars outposts in the permanent and
intermittent occupancies. Comparing with interstellar travel, it is more convenient to utilize the energy sources on the planets.
localized, stationary surface elements in the outposts such as central communication facilities, habitats, and in-situ resource utilization,
and the mobile power sources refer to the power systems for manned and/or unmanned robotic systems such as construction and
mining vehicles, robotic rovers, and unpressurized and pressurized rovers. Fig. 32(a) and 32(b) display the cumulative stationary
power requirements for the lunar and Mars outposts, respectively, in the permanent and intermittent occupancies [537]. To accom
plish predefined exploration tasks, spacecrafts are designed with different functional modules and assembled by the devices that
require electrical power to operate. Although the occupant habitation systems on planetary surfaces have much more severe power
gap, it is more convenient for these systems to utilize the energy sources on the planets. On the contrary, interstellar travel has to deal
with the extremely sparse cosmic environment that is completely different from the planets.
Energy materials provide a striking potential solution to generate electrical power from the energy sources in the cosmic envi
ronment, such as the periodic exposure to star radiation by the photovoltaic effect or deformation due to the interaction with inter
stellar media by the piezoelectric and triboelectric effects in the cosmic environment [414-418]. Nanoscale spacecrafts are likely to
experience severe power inadequacy in long-term space missions. For nanoscrafts designed with microscale digital cameras, processors
and photon thrusters, for example, atomic battery powered from Pu238 or Am241 are typically used to functionalize these nanodevices.
However, battery life is critically limited by those materials since only about 150 mg are allocated for the entire battery systems in the
ultralight nanocrafts [404-407], especially considering the extremely low temperature and sparse vacuum cosmic environment. As a
consequence, it is important to optimize energy materials for the nanosails in nanocrafts following certain selection and design criteria
[398]. Photovoltaic technology has been proposed to address the power limitation of nanocrafts in interstellar travel by generating
electrical energy from cosmic radiation. To harvest power for the laser beaming-enabled propulsion technology, the specific atmo
spheric transparency of the Earth requires near infrared (NIR) spectral window (i.e., 1–2 μm) for the ground-based laser array. The
propulsion mechanism is the momentum transfer of reflected photons, so the materials of the nanosails need to be maximized in optical
contrast and minimized in absorption. The materials need to have low optical losses (i.e., absorptivity 〈10− 5) in the NIR at elevated
temperatures, and optimized photonic design is necessary to obtain a high refractive index contrast for efficient transfer of laser photon
momentum. Studies have concluded that certain metals (e.g., gold and silver) are competitive candidates for the reflectors in the
propulsion wavelength range, which contain well absorption from free carriers to prevent survival at the incident power density level
of 10 GW/m2 [419,420]. Photovoltaic power generation systems contain multiple modules such as the photovoltaic cells to convert
light into electricity, mechanical connections to operate the systems, and electrical regulation to control and modify the power output
[538]. As pure energy striking the photovoltaic cells, light principally imparts enough energy to the electrons (i.e., negatively charged
atomic particles) to raise the energy level and free them. Built-in-potential barriers act on those electrons can be used to produce
voltage, and thus, drive current through a micro-circuit. Photovoltaic cells are the thin layers of semiconductor materials typically
made of copper, cadmium telluride (CdTe), gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium diselenide (CuInSe2) or titanium dioxide (TiO2).
Fig. 33 presents the selection, photonic design and absorption mechanisms of the potential materials to absorb radiation energy in
interstellar travel [398]. Fig. 33 (a) discusses the material candidates for the nanosails of nanocrafts under the considerations of the
refractive index, mass density and absorption coefficient. In particular, the potential materials are evaluated based on the trade-off
between high refractive index, low absorption and mass density. Fig. 33(b) shows the possible material designs of the single slab,
multilayer stack, photonic crystal (PhC) pillar slab, or PhC hole slab. Fig. 33(c) compares the acceleration distances of c-Si and MoS2 in
the proposed structures of the slab, tri-layer and quint-layer stacks, and PhC pillar and hole slabs. Minimized acceleration distance and
maximized reflectance are compared with respect to reflectance, and optimal design is obtained to maximize the average reflectance or
minimize the acceleration distance. All the photonic structure optimizations are carried out based on the specific payload mass of 0.1 g,
laser intensity of 10 GW/m2, sail area of 10 m2), and target velocity of vf = 0.2c. Fig. 33(d) reports the equilibrium nanosail tem
perature in terms of the emissivity and absolute absorption. Shaded areas represent the absolute absorption ranges for the c-Si and
MoS2 nanosail structures, and the dashed lines refer to the corresponding melting temperatures of c-Si and MoS2.
42
Fig. 33. Material selection, photonic design and absorption mechanisms [398]. (a) Material candidates for the nanosails of nanocrafts with respect
to the refractive index, mass density and absorption coefficient. The comparison demonstrates the trade-off between high refractive index and low
absorption and mass density. (b) Possible materials designed for the nanosails that have single slab, multilayer stack, photonic crystal (PhC) pillar
slab, or PhC hole slab. (c] Acceleration distances of c-Si and MoS2 in the structures of slab, tri-layer and quint-layer stacks, and PhC pillars and holes.
Minimized acceleration distance and maximized reflectance are compared with respect to the reflectance. (d] Equilibrium nanosail temperature as a
function of the emissivity and absolute absorption. Shaded areas represent the absolute absorption ranges for the c-Si and MoS2 nanosail structures,
and the dashed lines refer to the corresponding melting temperatures of c-Si and MoS2.
4.2. Design and optimization of mechanical energy metamaterials
4.2.1. Artificial intelligence in energy materials

Energy harvesting performance of mechanical energy metamaterials significantly depends on the discovery of new energy mate
rials (e.g., more suitable piezoelectric or triboelectric materials) and the structural optimization of metamaterial-inspired nanosails.
Given the highly complex nature of material discovery and structural design, it is necessary to determine the optimal mechanical
energy metamaterials for specific applications using AI. Attempting to mimic human cognition, AI has been extensively used as a
complementary paradigm to address the engineering problems that are difficult, if not impossible, to solve using conventional ap
proaches such as material discovery in mechanical energy metamaterials [1,89]. AI methods are capable to capture the subtle func
tional relationships between input variables (e.g., cosmic environment conditions) and output variables (e.g., electrical power)
without the requirements on assuming prior form of the relationships. Therefore, the advent and development of AI (i.e., data-driven
techniques) have played an important role in material discovery [431-433,604]. Material science significantly depends on the
development of science and technology. Historically, materials were investigated by empirical science prior to the 1600 s, which was
mainly metallurgical testing and observations over the stone, bronze, iron and steel ages [431-434]. Next, theoretical science started
dominating the field of material science since the empirical science, demonstrated by the establishment of scientific laws and
mechanisms in theoretical modeling such as the Newton’s laws of motion or the laws of thermodynamics in material science. Shortly
after the boom of the theoretical science paradigm, however, it was found that theoretical models typically face the dilemma between
simplification and accuracy. Therefore, it was necessary to simplify certain complexity to obtain closed-form solutions [435]. Although
the trade-off between solvability and accuracy has become a widely accepted compromise in theoretical science until nowadays,
theoretical analysis of material science has been facing the difficulty, even infeasibility in certain cases, of obtaining theoretical
43
Fig. 34. Development of methodology and technology in the discovery of energy materials. (a) Main development history of methodology in
material discovery from empirical science prior to 1600 s, to theoretical science until 1950 s, computational science until 2000 s, and data-driven
science until present. (b) Main development history of technology in material discovery from the first-generation using statistical tools until 1950 s
to the second-generation using data-driven tools. (c) Material discovery methodology and supporting technology enabled by AI, particularly from
obtaining raw datasets through preliminary experiments, data extracting using traditional statistics, data reducing to obtain key factors, AI modeling
to characterize the relationship, to exploring, predicting and optimizing the functionality of energy materials.
solutions with acceptable accuracy. To address the solvability issue in theoretical science, computational science started attracting
extensive attention in material science right after the debut of computers in 1950 s [436,437]. Comparing with its theoretical
counterpart, computational science simulates complex phenomena by discretizing continuous materials into elements using the
physical or material laws and mechanisms established in theoretical science, e.g., molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, finite element
analysis (FEA), density functional theory (DFT), etc. Based on the rapid development of computer science and technology, main
methodology in material science has turned into data-driven methods since the 2000 s [438], which leads to the situation that
theoretical, experimental and numerical studies in most scientific fields are related to data-driven tools [439,440]. The large amount of
data generated in those studies has arisen the development of data analysis during the last two decades, which booms the field of data
analytics and promotes the paradigm of applying AI algorithms in material science for characteristics prediction and performance
optimization [605].
Fig. 34 presents the development of methodology and technology in discovering energy materials. Fig. 34(a) presents the main
development history of methodology in material discovery from the period of empirical science to conduct experiments by observation
and experience prior to 1600 s, to the periods of theoretical science to obtain mechanisms by simplifying and characterizing rela
tionship until 1950 s, computational science to carry out simulations based on discretization and compatibility until 2000 s, and data-
driven science that uses AI-enabled data analytics to obtain material prediction and optimization. Fig. 34(b) summarizes the main
development history of technology in material discovery from the first-generation using statistical approaches until 1950 s to the
second-generation based on data-driven tools. Other than automated feature engineering for data extraction, data-driven technology
significantly depends on AI to establish the relationship between descriptors (i.e., input variables) and application performance (i.e.,
output variables). Comparing to statistical approaches, data-driven tools critically rely on evaluation. Data-driven models are capable
of memorizing every instance of a dataset, which may lead to an approximately 100% accuracy on the same dataset. However, it is
possible that the models do not perform well on unseen datasets. Therefore, it is necessary to validate the data-driven “black-box”
models by the data that have not been used in testing or training, such as developing the models by a part of the data and use the rest for
evaluation. This strategy is summarized as the k-fold cross validation, where k represents the parts that the dataset is arbitrarily
divided. Cross validation has been developed as a standard evaluation method to overcome possible over-fitting. A total of k-1 data
parts is used to develop the data-driven models, while the remaining kth part is saved for model testing. The entire process is repeated k
times with different data partitions [441]. It is worthwhile to point out that, however, k-fold cross validation requires to build k
models, which results in significantly computational cost in some cases. In addition, cross validation needs to take into account su
pervised data preprocessing to eliminate potential bias in the models. Various performance metrics have been proposed to quanti
tatively evaluate the classification or regression performance, e.g., accuracy, area under the curve of receiver operating characteristics
(ROC), coefficient of correlation (R), explained variance (R2), mean absolute error (MAE), precision, sensitivity, root mean squared
44
error (RMSE), specificity, standard deviation of error (SDE), etc. [442].

Fig. 34(c) shows the material discovery methodology and supporting technology enabled by AI. Material discovery methodology
consists of four stages to analyze raw datasets, including data extraction that obtains fundamental response and relationship using
traditionally statistical approaches, data reduction that obtains key factors mainly using unsupervised or supervised data mining tools,
response modeling that characterizes more accurate relationship using classification and regression algorithms, and data exploration
that uses AI algorithms such as machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), artificial neutral networks (ANN), etc., to design, predict
and optimize the functionality of energy materials. Note that numerous raw data of preliminary materials are typically saved in the
formats of heterogenous materials. Data extraction (e.g., attribute-type conversion, discretization, feature extraction and selection,
normalization, sampling, etc.) is considered as the preprocessing step for AI-enabled technology in material science, since it is sig
nificant to comprehend the format and representation and then improve the data quality. Typical issues of datasets (e.g., duplicate data
instance, missing value, noise, outlier, etc.) can be identified and removed; however, this requires sufficient amount of data. As a
consequence, optimizing limited amount of data remains an active field of research in AI-based material science [443]. Data reduction,
as the step after data extraction, consists of the supervised or unsupervised methods, which is categorized by specific target attributes.
Once proper data are obtained through reduction techniques such as supervised mining, the remining data are ready for modeling in
the next step [444]. Data modeling needs special attention to appropriately divide the data into training, testing and validation sets,
since otherwise the data models are likely to be over fitting with over-optimistic accuracy. Traditionally, regression techniques are
applied to develop the models if the target attributes are numeric such as ultrahigh stiffness of mechanical metamaterials, electrical
output of mechanical energy metamaterials, etc., while classification techniques are used if the attributes are categorical such as
mechanical metamaterials are metallic or not. Certain techniques are able for both classification and regression. Data exploration
based on AI algorithms (e.g., ML, DL, etc.) aims to expand the functionality of new materials through design, prediction and opti
mization. For example, relationship mining and clustering techniques are used for the design and analysis of new materials, such as
identifying similar materials in a same family or discovering hidden features and patterns in the data [445].
Recent studies have used AI techniques for in-depth data analysis and in-service performance prediction of energy materials based
on experimental or numerical datasets [575]. AI-based models have been reported with comparable prediction performance with the
best solid-state chemists while the computing time can be significantly reduced, as shown in Fig. 35(a) [576]. AI in energy materials
Fig. 35. Applications of AI in the energy materials of piezoelectric, photovoltaic and porous materials. (a) Prediction performance of AI-based
models that is comparable with the best solid-state chemists but the computing time is significantly reduced [576]. (b) Comparison and valida
tion between the experimental Tc and predicted Tc obtained from the multivariate model for high-temperature perovskite piezoelectric materials
[580]. (c) Analysis of the chemical trends for the ML-predicted bandgap datasets, where the four panels displayed different X-site chemistries for the
elpasolite compounds [581]. (d) LSTM RNN model to predict the temporal evolution of the in-service performance for the fuel cell materials [582].
45
Table 10
AI algorithms to predict the electrical performance of different battery materials [575].
Type Materials Objectives Algorithms and Methods References
Lithium-ion LiPF6 electrolyte Determination of unknown concentrations for ML and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy [583]
batteries major components
Layer-structured cathode Prediction of key electrochemical properties ANN to predict the [584]
(e.g., discharge energy density, capacity
fading, etc.) properties of inorganic
crystalline solids
LiFePO4 Prediction of lifetime cycle performance Bayesian LS-SVR and wavelet neural network to [585]
predict with short computing time and small
numerical errors
Li5B7S13, Li2B2S5, Prediction of superionic Li-ion conduction ML to choose energy materials and DFT-MD to
[586]
Li3ErCl6, determine ionic conductivity
LiSO3F, Li3InCl6, Li2HIO,

LiMgB3(H9N)2 and
CsLi2BS3 • Li5B7S13
Na-ion NaNi1/3Mn1/3Co1/3O2 Prediction and optimization of fabrication Support vector regression with simplex [587]
batteries cathode process algorithm cluster
Ni-rich LiNixCo1-x-yMn1-x-y-zO2 Design of synthesis process and prediction of Multiple ML regression algorithms including [63]
batteries electrochemical performance SVM, DT, RR, RF, ERT and NN.
Carbon-based Carbon-based molecular Design and prediction of high-performance, DFT-ML framework [69]
batteries electrode materials carbon-based positive electrode materials
can be characterized into two main application directions, including discovery of new energy materials, and prediction and optimi
zation of energy-related performance [577]. In the first application direction, for example, ML has been used to develop new battery
materials [576]. The authors particularly reported the ML-based battery materials model to discover the crystalline solid materials
with fast single-crystal Li-ion conductivity at the room temperature. The ML-based discovery model was found with 1000 times faster
than the trial-and-error methods in discovering the crystalline solid materials that perform 44 times improvement in the log-average of
Li-ion conductivity. In the second application direction, ANN, SVM and other AI algorithms have been used to predict the overall
performance (e.g., lifetime health condition) or spatial distributions of physical fields (e.g., potential and temperature) of energy
materials [577]. For example, ANN model was reported to identify the optimal operation parameters for the reap–rest–recovery cycle
of perovskite photovoltaics [578]. The ANN model was used to predict the performance and operation conditions of various solar cells.
In addition, AI algorithms have been used to invert the typical energy materials discovery process by predefining the desired per
formance and then determining the structures and compositions to effectively fulfil the performance goals without defining the initial
structures or materials. Table 10 summarizes the existing AI algorithms to predict the electrical performance of different battery
materials [575].
Fig. 35(b) to 35(d) show the existing applications of AI in the energy materials of piezoelectric, photovoltaic and porous materials
[579]. A multivariate model was developed to discover the high-temperature perovskite piezoelectric materials and predict the Curie
temperature (Tc) of perovskite BiMeO3–PbTiO3 solid solution [580]. The authors particularly simplified the 30 parameters of the
piezoelectric materials to 6 key attributes to obtain the multivariate model to predict the high temperature BiTmO3 and BiLuO3 with
the Curie temperature of 730 and 705 ◦ C, respectively. Fig. 35(b) presents the comparison and validation between the experimental Tc
and predicted Tc obtained from the multivariate model [580]. A multi-fidelity co-kriging statistical learning framework was proposed
to generate a ML model for accurate prediction of the bandgaps with low cost at the highest fidelity level [581]. The multi-fidelity
model was used to compute the bandgaps of the double perovskite oxides in photovoltaic materials, where the Heyd-Scuseria-
Ernzerhof (HSE06) and Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhoff (PBE) bandgaps were treated as the high-fidelity and low-fidelity estimations,
respectively. Fig. 35(c) shows the analysis of the chemical trends for the ML-predicted bandgap datasets. The four panels displayed
different X-site chemistries for the elpasolite compounds, where each panel indicated an averaged predicted bandgap for a given A- and
B’-site chemistry and averaged over all A’-site chemistries in the datasets [581]. A fusion prognostic approach was developed using the
particle filter and long-short term memory recurrent neural network (LSTM RNN) to enhance the reliability and durability of proton
exchange membrane fuel cell [582]. Fusing the particle filter, the reported LSTM RNN model accurately predicted the lifetime of the
proton exchange membrane fuel cell when the training data was up to 60% of the entire dataset. Fig. 35(d) shows the LSTM RNN model
to predict the temporal evolution of the in-service performance for the fuel cell materials, where the left part is the RUL estimation and
the right part is the short-term degradation prediction [582].
4.2.2. Application paradigms of artificial intelligence in mechanical metamaterials

Due to the characteristics of periodically assembling microstructures to achieve unique mechanical performance, mechanical
metamaterials take advantage of AI in their structural design [605,606]. Prior to demonstrating the application of AI in mechanical
metamaterials, it is of necessity to briefly overview the development trend of structural design. Initially, structural design belongs to
empirical science that is generally inspired by nature. Natural species have inspired and guided human to design different structures to
meet requirements for specific applications. Other than broadening by other existing structures, structural design also refers to pre
vious experience of ancestors, which is of practical significance to improve design efficiency and avoiding mistakes. However,
46
empirical science heavily depends on personal opinion and experience, which is inaccurate especially when structures are complex
such as mechanical metamaterials. Next, theoretical science starts playing an important role in guiding structural design, which is an
epoch-making progress to theoretically analyze the response of structural design under different boundary conditions and quantita
tively assess the performance (e.g., safety and reliability) of structures. Knowledge on structural design has been categorized into
different disciplines such as theoretical mechanics, structural mechanics, which leads to the advent and development of quantitative
standards and design criteria. In particular, experimental mechanics initiated by Galileo and rational mechanics debuted by Newton
are considered as the beginning of structural design from experience to rationality. Theoretical modeling is typically regarded as a
significant technique for structural research, which, however, has faced critical challenge of the trade-off between accuracy and
solvability, i.e., complex theoretical models are difficult, if not impossible, to solve while simplified models are inadequate in accuracy.
More recently, computational science has been extensively used to simulate and optimize the response and performance of
structures. To address the difficulties in theoretical modelling, computational structural mechanics are proposed to carry out structural
analysis under complex conditions such as extremely external loading or geometric and material nonlinearity. Computational ap
proaches have been widely used in topological structure and optimization [446,447]. Various computational techniques have been
developed, including error design, mesh adaptive encryption, multivariable finite element, semi-analytical numerical methods.
Computational structural mechanics has expanded structural design from two perspectives of experimental and theoretical studies to
the third perspective of numerical calculation. Although computational structural mechanics have brought structural design into a new
generation, it is found with certain inherent weakness. Underlying theoretical expressions are difficult to obtain while general rules
and characteristics are difficult to define, which requires rational assumptions in computational models. Besides the significant de
pendency on computing power, convergence and accuracy issues are critical in computational science. Therefore, practicability and
efficiency are important considerations in computational science as well.
Nowadays, data-driven computational science (i.e., AI) has been proposed to design and calculate complex structures such as
mechanical metamaterials with microstructures. With the soaring of complexity in structural design and function requirement in
inverse design, traditional research paradigms based on experimental observation, theoretical modeling or computational simulations
have encountered severely technical bottleneck in structural analysis, design and manufacture. As a competitive alternative to the
traditional methods, AI can establish complex relationships between input and output variables using high-dimensional and high-
Fig. 36. Artificial intelligence (AI) in mechanical metamaterials. Challenges of mechanical metamaterials in fabricability such as industrialized
fabrication, complexity such as microstructural variation [19], designability such as material and structural design, and performance such as
mechanical response maneuverability. Assistance of AI in mechanical metamaterials, including balancing the trade-off between frication cost and
complexity in feasibility, maximizing mechanical characteristics in optimization, predicting mechanical response in prediction, and inversely
designing microstructures in functionality-oriented production.
47
throughput data, which is able to capture the laws that are difficult to obtain by traditional tools. AI particularly improves the effi
ciency and comprehensive degree of traditional methods, which typically combines experimental and computational results with
intelligent algorisms to unveil the relationships in structural design between, for example, microstructural parameters and mechanical
response for mechanical metamaterials. Studies have been conducted to develop well-trained AI models to predict the structural
properties of complex structures [448-450]. AI has been used in mechanical metamaterials to address their challenges in fabricability
such as industrialized fabrication, complexity such as microstructural validation, designability such as material and structural design,
and performance such as mechanical response maneuverability, as shown in Fig. 36. Assistance of AI in mechanical metamaterials can
be categorized into four aspects, including balancing the trade-off between frication cost and complexity in feasibility, maximizing
mechanical characteristics in optimization, predicting mechanical response in prediction, and inversely designing microstructures in
functionality-oriented production.
First of all, fabricability. Although microstructures have brought advanced properties to mechanical metamaterials, their complex
localized design also results in difficulties to multiscale fabrication. The fabricability challenge of mechanical metamaterials is ex
pected to be solved by applying AI in feasibility. The fabrication techniques of multiscale mechanical metamaterials are mainly AM
[451], atomic layer deposition (ALD) [4], melt electrospinning (ME) [452-455], etc. High-precision fabrication is still in its infancy and
many limitations need to be overcome such as production efficiency, high cost, instability, and material inflexibility. In the entire
demand-design-fabrication process, mechanical metamaterials have been particularly facing the difficulty in fabrication, especially for
manufacturing the metamaterials by highly nonlinear multi-materials with significant uncertainty and anisotropy [456]. For example,
lattice metamaterials were fabricated at the microscale using the two-photon lithography (TPL)-enabled 3D printing technology to
obtain adjustable mechanical properties [457]. Ultrathin alumina films based on ALD were used to fabricate the plate-like mechanical
metamaterials, which were reported with the characteristics of full recovery from extreme bending deformation [141]. AI algorithms
can be used to maintain the complexity of mechanical metamaterials (i.e., maintain the mechanical response) while reducing the
fabrication cost.
Secondly, complexity. Mechanical metamaterials periodically assemble microstructures into overall structures, and hence, their
complexity is mainly due to the initial design of microstructures and assembly strategy. The complexity challenge of mechanical
metamaterials is expected to be solved by applying AI in optimization. Theoretical modeling and computational simulation are
powerful tools to develop AI models for designing and optimizing the microstructures and assembly strategy in mechanical meta
materials. For example, microstructural modeling and simulation were used to assist in optionally choosing and adjusting the
equivalent mechanical properties of structures [8]. Virtual validation technique was used to couple different physical problems into
multi-physical framework to obtain the multifunctional properties of mechanical metamaterials [458]. AI algorithms can be used to
optimize mechanical metamaterials by establishing quantitative and qualitative relationships between the input variables (i.e.,
complex microstructures) and output variables (i.e., overall appearance and mechanical response).
Thirdly, designability. Mechanical metamaterials can be designed to meet the targeted mechanical properties based on previous
experience, experimental rules and scientific principles [459]. AI algorithms can be used to predict the mechanical properties of
mechanical metamaterials (e.g., Young’s modulus between stress and strain) while inversely designing the mechanical performance (e.
g., stiffness between force and displacement). Mainstream design strategy in mechanical metamaterials is empirical based on trial-and-
error, which usually relies on large amounts of experiments or simulations. Comparing with isotropic, homogeneous and single ma
terials, the mechanical mechanism and design requirements of mechanical metamaterials are more complex [460-462]. The desig
nability challenge of mechanical metamaterials is expected to be solved by applying AI in prediction.
Fourthly, performance. The performance challenge of mechanical metamaterials is expected to be solved by applying AI in
functionality-oriented production. Based on proper pre- and post-processing of raw data from experiments, modelling or simulations,
AI model is expected to help design microstructures such that certain characteristics (e.g., hardness, resistance, robustness, relaxation
ratio, strength and elongation) of the overall mechanical metamaterials can be expanded, or certain response requirements (e.g., shear
and bending stiffness, friction coefficient, Poisson’s ratio, etc.) can be met. One of development trends of mechanical metamaterials is
“smartness” (i.e., real-time under external stimuli) [463-466]. Specific design of microstructures and selection of material composition
are necessary to obtain mechanical metamaterials with those smart functionalities; however, lack of study has been conducted in the
current stage. For example, mechanical metamaterial with stable memory and on-demand reprogramming ability have been reported
by tailoring the mechanical units in the magnetic field [36].
4.2.3. Material discovery and structural optimization of mechanical energy metamaterials

AI in mechanical energy metamaterials can be categorized into the application directions of discovering new energy materials and
optimizing structural design. AI algorithms assist in exploring energy materials from the material perspective (e.g., nano-composites)
and structural perspective (e.g., structural materials) [467-469]. The electrical characteristics of energy materials mainly depend on
the chemical and physical properties of micro-components and assembly strategy [470,471]. In particular, AI-enabled structural
design aims to obtain controllable microstructural structures for mechanical metamaterials by integrating bottom-up and top-down
methods. AI algorithms assist in clarifying the internal relationship between the mechanical and electrical response of mechanical
energy metamaterials and microstructures, and thus, predicting and optimizing the performance [472-474]. AI algorithms assist in
developing new modeling and optimization methods by taking application requirements into consideration, and eventually achieve
functionality-oriented mechanical energy metamaterial [475,476]. AI algorithms assist in reducing the design cost and time [477]. For
example, the AI-enabled, data-driven material design system was developed to discover functional materials that are covered by
semiconductor, dielectric and metal materials [478]. More recently, generative adversarial networks (GAN) were reported in inverse
design and deep reinforcement learning (DRL) was in optimal design [479]. AI algorithms assist in establishing new fabrication
48
methods. Intelligent fabrication techniques based on AI techniques have been applied to realize novel microstructures and nano
structures for mechanical energy metamaterials [16]. For example, advanced fabrication technologies were developed in formation of
microstructures based on the self-assembly and top-down approaches by two-photon polymerization (TPP) [480]. To effectively apply
AI in mechanical energy metamaterials, however, certain technical problems still need to be solved: 1) constructing experimental and
numerical simulation databases, 2) extracting key characteristic parameters to reduce computational expense; 3) quantifying the
influences and uncertainties of those parameters on the final performance, and (4) introducing new mechanisms and physical con
straints to improve the overall performance of AI models [481-488].
Quantum mechanics has been proposed as an effective tool to discover new energy materials for the cosmic environment [540].
Reformulating the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics, DFT describes the electron response in a system, which can be used to
predict the performance of materials for specific applications. Many important materials properties can be determined by DFT using
the total energy. Fig. 37 shows the procedures of determining new energy materials using DFT [540]. Fig. 37(a) demonstrates the
typical procedures of determining new energy materials for energy harvesting in the cosmic environment. The inputs are the rationally
estimated structures with atomic positions and periodic unit cells, and the numerical convergence and approximation parameters. The
outputs are the fundamental quantities including the electron charge density, optimized band and crystal structures, and total energy.
Analyzing the outputs leads to the descriptors relevant to predefined applications. Knowledge obtained from DFT can be used to
determine the next set of atomic and periodically unity structures for further testing. Fig. 37(b) illustrates the computational design of
new Li-ion materials for battery with high-rate capability. New ion-exchanged cathode materials have been developed to improve the
rate capability by computing the activation barriers of the diffusion path through the lattice of oxygen and transition of metal ions as a
function of layer spacing. Comparing with the conventional solid-state (SS) materials, the superior performance of specific energy is
obtained from the ion-exchanged (IE) materials obtained from the computational design. In particular, LiMn0.5Ni0.5O2 layer is used to
space Li-ion migration barriers, and the finding indicates that small expansions of the layer spacing lead to a significant improvement
of the Li diffusivity. The layer is able to synthesize the desired material by the ion exchange of Li for Na in NaMn0.5Ni0.5O2. The samples
optimized by the modified synthesis technique are significantly improved comparing with the ones prepared using the conventional
synthesis route, as shown in Fig. 37(c).
Fig. 37. Procedures of determining new energy materials using DFT [540]. (a) Typical procedures of finding new energy materials with high-rate
capability for energy harvesting in the cosmic environment using DFT. (b) new Li-ion materials for battery with high-rate capability determined by
DFT-based computational design. (c) Battery samples optimized using modified synthesis technique are significantly improved comparing with the
ones prepared using the conventional synthesis route.
49
Structural optimization of photovoltaic metamaterials using AI is exampled for the photovoltaic components in nanosails. To reach
the near light-speed velocity, certain optimization criteria have been defined for the photovoltaic nanosails, including 1) low mass
density such as less than 0.1 g/m2, 2) broadband reflectivity within the Doppler-shift bandwidth, and 3) low optical absorption co
efficient with the absorptivity less than 10− 5 [539]. AI optimization has been conducted to address the trade-off between the
broadband reflectivity and total mass by properly selecting the fabrication material (i.e., mass and optical properties) and laser source
(i.e., working wavelength) for the nanosails. According to the inverse design with respect to the optimization criteria, the performance
is optimized by converging at least 104 spatial design variables into a simple one-dimensional sub-wavelength grating, which improves
up to 50% of the mass and optical properties for the metamaterial nanosails. In particular, ML and DL algorithms are used as powerful
tools to carry out the inverse design of the photovoltaic metamaterials by topologically optimizing the microstructures with sub-
diffractive resonant photonic and plasmonic elements. The reported topology optimization can be efficiently coupled with conven
tional optimization frameworks (e.g., gradient descent or metaheuristic methods) to address the multi-objective nanophotonic issue in
the photovoltaic metamaterials.
Fig. 38 presents the structural topology optimization for the photovoltaic metamaterials [539]. Fig. 38(a) illustrates the micro
structures of the nanosails and the adjoint topology optimization used to maximize the reflectivity within the Doppler-shift bandwidth.
Once the optimization is completed, the performance of each design on the free-form silicon substrate is evaluated with respect to the
acceleration distance. Fig. 38(b) shows the optimization procedures of the material distribution that initially is a random smooth
dielectric function (shown in top), which is converged into a binary distribution after applying the binarization function for 50th
iteration of optimization (bottom). The final design is insensitive to fabrication perturbations as the sub-25 nm features are eliminated
through the filtering procedures. Fig. 38(c) compares the acceleration distance and mean reflectivity of the optimized designs, which
shows that case 1 design (i.e., blue with p = 800, 266 nm) of the photovoltaic metamaterials offers a higher mean reflectivity than case
2 with p = 1010 nm, 336 nm. The blue and red stars indicate the lowest acceleration distance in the sets of case 1 and case 2,
respectively, and the gray star demonstrates the position of case 1 with the highest reflectivity. Larger filling factor of the silicon inside
the unit cells is likely to moderate the acceleration distance. Fig. 38(d) presents the two steps for the topology optimization of the
photovoltaic metamaterials in nanosails, i.e., 1) compressed space construction for the optimization of the nanosails by training the
variational auto-encoder networks, and 2) optimizing the nanosails based on the initial conditions sampled by pre-trained networks.
The variational auto-encoder networks consist of two coupled neural networks, i.e., the encoder and decoder. This allows for much
faster convergence to the local extrema than randomly selecting initial material distributions, and filtering high-efficiency designs out
of large data sets sampled by a neural network. The insets show the input and reconstructed optimized designs of the nanosails. Fig. 38
(e) shows the approach that uses the decoder of the pre-trained variational auto-encoder networks as a generator of the initial con
ditions for the additional post-processing run of the topology optimization. The insets show the optimized design examples of the
photovoltaic metamaterials.
Fig. 38. Structural topology optimization for the photovoltaic metamaterials in nanosails [539]. (a) Microstructures of the nanosails and opti
mization setup. (b) Optimization progress from the initial material distribution (top) to the binary distribution (bottom). (c) Comparison of the
design performance between the acceleration distance and mean reflectivity. (d) Demonstration of the topology optimization steps to train the
variational auto-encoder. (e) Variational auto-encoder topology optimization of the photovoltaic metamaterials.
50
5. Space energy systems based on mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails
5.1. Performance-oriented mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails
This review article focuses on generating electrical power from the cosmic environment using the nanosails designed by mechanical
energy metamaterials. The metamaterial nanosails can be fabricated by MPM or MTM at the milli- to centimeter scale in size and the
micro/nanoscale in thickness [489,490] and installed to the nanocrafts to support the energy consumption during a long-term
interstellar travel. Since nanocrafts are expected to be conflicted with the interstellar medium (e.g., cosmic dust grains) and sub
jected to starlight periodically, the nanosails will be exposed to the collision-induced kinetic energy or photovoltaic energy that can be
converted in to electrical power by mechanical energy metamaterials [491,492]. Performance-oriented optimization is the approach to
appropriately design the metamaterial nanosails to satisfy the energy requirement of nanocrafts. The previous section has demon
strated the power of AI as a data-driven tool to discover the energy materials and optimize the structures to increase the energy
conversion efficiency of the metamaterial nanosails. For example, AI can be used to unveil the mechanism of the metamaterial
nanosails subjected to the complex cosmic conditions.
Fig. 39 presents the typical application procedures of AI to design performance-oriented mechanical energy metamaterial nano
sails. The step of automated feature engineering is categorized into the external and internal situations. The external situation mainly
includes the energy requirement to maintain the functionality of nanocrafts in the extreme conditions of the cosmic environment (e.g.,
low temperature and sparse vacuum), and the internal situation involves the design of the microstructural units and characterization of
the energy materials. Dominated descriptors are obtained to characterize the energy harvesting performance of the metamaterial
nanosails. The initial energy harvesting results (i.e., raw data) are analyzed with respect to the descriptors in data processing. Single- or
multilayer AI models are developed to establish the relationship between the input and output variables using different AI algorithms
(e.g., ML, DL or ANN). Functionality exploration is then conducted using the data-driven technology to obtain the enhanced results of,
for example, electrical power generated by the metamaterials nanosails after the performance-oriented design and optimization.
Performance-oriented design of the metamaterial nanosails consist of synthesis analysis, fabrication, assembly and performance
evaluation. A possible strategy is to design and fabricate the mechanical metamaterials as the structural substrate and cast the energy
materials (e.g., Si, MoS2 and dielectric aerogels) on the metasurfaces using different deposition technologies [82,493]. For example,
recent development of the fusion draw process technology brings the possibility of fabricating the planar glass sheets over ~ m2 in area
and 10–50 μm in thickness [398]. While maintaining the area at the meter level or even larger, the thickness can be dropped to the
nanoscale such that to keep the main functionality and reduce the weight [494]. Thin films of aerogels provide well structural stability
for the metamaterial nanosails, which can be used to design the spacer layers between high-index materials in the nanosails. Although
silica and alumina aerogels have been produced in bulk slabs, freestanding aerogel films is relatively challenging in fabrication.
Various technologies have been proposed to produce high-index semiconductor layers for nanosails. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
technology can be used to produce ultrathin planar films with the thickness of less than 100 nm using silicon or diamond. Recent
studies have demonstrated the possibility of fabricating the freestanding single crystal silicon films that are thinner than 100 nm using
the silicon on insulator technology [495]. Powder precursor CVD and metal–organic CVD can also be used for layered materials with
van der Waals interplanar bonding, synthesizing meter scale films with nanoscale thickness [496,497]. Those layered van der Waals
Fig. 39. Application procedures of the performance-oriented mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails using AI. Data-driven technology
comprises of the steps of automated feature engineering that characterizes the external and internal conditions to obtain descriptors, AI modeling
that establishes the complex relationship between the input and output variables, and functionality exploration that obtains the enhanced results
through the performance-oriented design and optimization.
51
materials are able to stay free of surface and interface, and the bonding defects can only be on a single atomic layer. It is worthwhile to
point out that, however, integration of mechanical substrate (i.e., planar mechanical metamaterials) and energy materials into the final
nanosails remains a critical technology issue. In particular, it is challenging to evenly fabricate mechanical metamaterials and integrate
energy materials over meter scale in area and nanometer scale in thickness, especially considering that the mechanical metamaterials
are typically designed with complex microstructures to improve the electrical performance. As a consequence, design and fabrication
of the nanosail components in a smaller scale (e.g., at the centimeter level in area) and then assemble or stitch together into the final
structures can be a promising solution to the situation [398]. On the contrary, current welding technology may not be sufficient in
joining the nanosail components given the ultrathin thickness. Two potential technologies can be applied to join crystalline compo
nents into nanosails, including the wafer bonding technique that is extensively used in the semiconductor industry, and fabricating an
aerogel grid frame that has holes or gaps matched the size and shape of the components. Given the rapid development of mechanical
metamaterials and energy materials in recent years, the structural substrate and electrically functional materials are feasible for the
mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails.
5.2. Mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails for nanoscale space energy systems
Wireless human control has become less possible, if not impossible, for the communication distance of several light years [560-
562]. The infeasibility of wireless communication over nanocrafts is, in part, due to the unavoidably high signal propagation latency
and constrained data rates of the communications links. This is why most of the space missions are manually operated from the ground
control centers until the mid-1980 s [564,565]. Unmanned nanocrafts are likely to be designed with high intelligence, which, however,
results in the fact of higher energy consumption. As a consequence, nanocrafts need to be designed with energy systems [563]. Due to
the application environment of the interstellar travel, the energy systems of nanocrafts need to be hybrid [566]. For example, light
beaming-enabled directed energy nanosails have been proposed as a competitive propulsion technology to accelerate the micro/
nanoscale space devices for interstellar travel at the near light speed. Nanocrafts need to be designed with charging systems to
automatically power the deployed nanodevices, such that to maintain the objective-driven, self-controllable functionality of the
intelligent nanocrafts during the years to decades of travel time [567-569]. To increase the energy harvesting and conversion effi
ciency, the power generation systems of intelligent nanocrafts need to be [538,541]:
(1) Hybrid to combine the kinetic energy source from the collision of cosmic dust grains using the MPM or MTM nanosails, the light
energy sources from the cosmic rays using the photovoltaic metamaterials-enabled nanosails, and different types of
nanobatteries;
(2) Self-configurable and self-optimizable to allow for the reconfiguration and optimization of the nanocrafts when the nanosails or
nanobatteries are deteriorated. In the worst-case scenario, unnecessary nanodevices or functions need to be shut down to reduce
the electrical requirement; and
(3) Self-protectable and self-healing to keep the key power modules away from potential harms (e.g., collision or cosmic rays) and
maintain the basic functionalities when the power systems are dysfunctional, corrupted or damaged.
To maintain nanocrafts with greater autonomy on space operation, the nanoscale space energy systems (nano SES) are proposed to
efficiently generate electrical power from the cosmic environment. The nano SES are designed with the laser beaming systems to
trigger and accelerate the nanocrafts from the Earth ground and the autonomous charging systems that generate electrical power
during the long-term interstellar travel. To maintain the functionality of spacecrafts in interstellar travel, the nano-SES are effectively
integrated with complex nanodevices. As the entire energy module in nanocrafts, the nano-SES are designed with the ultrathin me
chanical energy metamaterials coated on nanosails to generate electrical power, ultra-capacitors to storage electrical power, and
Starchip to automatically operate the nanocrafts.
Fig. 40 illustrates the nanosails and other modules of the nano-SES for nanocrafts in interstellar travel. Fig. 40(a) displays the
ultrathin metamaterial nanosails to generate electrical power from the kinetic and light energy sources in the cosmic environment, the
ultra-capacitors to storage electrical power, and the starchip to automatically operate the nanocrafts. The starchip components are
designed to automatically switch on to operate or off in the sleep mode to save power during the long journal to reach the Moon in
approximately 1 min, the Sun in 41 mins, the edge of the solar system in 4 years and Alpha Centauri in 20 years. Fig. 40(b) displays the
zero-contrast dielectric metamaterial nanosails designed with the gradually variated pattern of c-Si nanodisks linked by thin matched
sublayers on top of the thin silica layer. The beryllium copper layer is coated to protect the metamaterial sails from potential dust
collisions and atomic particle erosion. The combination of the microstructural silicon layer and silica thin film in the metamaterial sails
lead to the well controllability of energy management and beam riding dynamics. The nanodisks of the metamaterial sails are designed
in different diameters to anomalously reflect the light through a phase discontinuity, which enables the passive self-stabilization with a
flat macroscopic geometry. The starchip is placed at a distance d from the metamaterial sails using the rigid suspension booms, which
can significantly modify the imparted torques by controlling the distance of the chip mass center from the sails. The metamaterial sails
are at the meter scale in the projection and have extremely thin thickness. The perspective, top, and side views of the nanocrafts show
the all-dielectric metamaterial sails and starchip, where the sails are designed as L = 2 m, average areal mass density of 0.54 g/m2 and
the net power of beam as P0 = 100 GW [542]. Fig. 40(c) shows the self-stabilized, parabolic and conical metamaterial nanosails that
use the radiation pressure to provide the propulsion to drive the nanoscafts. Fig. 40(d) displays the phase gradient profile of the
parabolic metamaterial nanosails to anomalous reflect the light with a focus at the distance of dCM [542].
52
Fig. 40. Nanosails and other modules of the nano-SES for nanoscrafts in interstellar travel. (a) Nano-SES designed with the ultrathin metamaterial
nanosails to generate electrical power from the kinetic and photovoltaic energy sources in the cosmic environment, the ultra-capacitors to storage
electrical power, and the starchip to automatically operate the nanocrafts. (b) Zero-contrast dielectric metamaterial nanosails designed with the
graduall y variated pattern of c-Si nanodisks linked by thin matched sublayers on top of the thin silica layer [542]. (c) Self-stabilized, parabolic and
conical metamaterial nanosails that use the radiation pressure to provide propulsion to drive the nanoscafts. (d) Phase gradient profile of the
parabolic metamaterial nanosails to anomalous reflect the light with a focus at the distance of dCM.
6. Summary and future outlook
Mechanical energy metamaterials have exhibited an attractive potential in generating electrical power from the environment,
which have been evolved into different energy harvesting devices in recent years. Yet lack of study has been conducted on mechanical
energy metamaterials in interstellar travel. This review article envisions mechanical energy metamaterials as an alternative energy
solution to address the power issue of nanocrafts in interstellar travel. We first comprehensively overview the debut and development
of mechanical energy metamaterials for energy harvesting, discussing the main characteristics of mechanical metamaterials, and
summarizing the recent findings on mechanical piezoelectric metamaterials (MPM) and mechanical triboelectric metamaterials
(MTM). Next, we identify the main characteristics of the cosmic environment, deliberating the fundamental energy challenges of
interstellar travel, and examining the stringent criteria for designing mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails to generate electrical
power. As a future prospect, we propose the application paradigms of mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails in the nano space
energy systems (nano-SES) to simultaneously scavenge energy from the kinetic energy resulted in cosmic dust grains collision and
photovoltaic energy from starlight in interstellar medium.
The extraordinary performance of mechanical metamaterials is summarized in the extremal response (i.e., ultrastiffness and ul
tralightweight), negative response (i.e., negative stiffness and negative Poisson’s ratio), active tunability (i.e., adaptivity and
programmability) and beyond mechanics (i.e., photovoltaic- and electromechanics). The characteristics are explained with respect to
the microstructural units in the categories of origami, lattice and chiral metamaterials. The challenges of mechanical energy meta
materials are discussed with respect to the analysis and application. The analysis challenge is how to effectively balance the desig
nability and performance, which can be solved by response prediction that establishes quantitative relationships between the
microstructures and energy harvesting performance and inverse design that establishes top-down approaches to design the micro
structures based on the performance requirements in application. The application challenge is how to balance the fabricability and
complexity, since the complexity of microstructures critically affects the characteristic and functionality of mechanical metamaterials.
The characteristics and challenges of the cosmic environment are identified to deliberate the fundamental energy issue of inter
stellar travel. Interstellar medium is diverse and far from uniform, which consists of dust, charged particles such as electrons and ions,
and neutral gas. Although the cosmic environment is extremely sparse, interstellar materials diffusely contain the most commonly
cosmic rays, cosmic radiations consisted of thermoelectric, electromagnetic and nuclear radiations, and cosmic dust grains. Given the
extremely large travel distance in space exploration, potential propulsion technologies have been proposed as nuclear fusion, anti
matter or directed energy propulsion. The current nuclear and thermoelectric battery technologies are found with inevitable short
comings, i.e., the nuclear materials are non-renewable and interstellar space is too sparse and cold to provide adequately thermal
radiations. A rechargeable energy solution is to generate electrical power from the energy sources in the cosmic environment. The
kinetic energy resulted in cosmic dust grains collision and photovoltaic energy from starlight are concluded as the main energy sources
for mechanical energy metamaterials in interstellar travel.
53
The stringent criteria of discovering the energy materials and optimizing the metamaterial structures are examined using the data-
driven analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. AI provides a powerful tool to develop analytical models and address the
challenges in material discovery and structural optimization of mechanical energy metamaterials. AI methods are capable to capture
the subtle functional relationships between the microstructural units and electrical power output of mechanical energy metamaterials
without the requirements on assuming a prior form of the relationship. The application of AI in mechanical energy metamaterials
consists of featuring, analyzing and validating. Automated feature engineering is categorized into the external and internal situations.
Dominated descriptors are obtained to characterize the energy harvesting performance of mechanical energy metamaterials, and the
initial energy harvesting results are analyzed with respect to the descriptors in data processing. Single- or multilayer AI models can be
developed to establish the relationship between the input and output variables using different AI algorithms, and the functionality
exploration can be conducted to obtain the enhanced electrical power. The performance-oriented design and fabrication of the
metamaterial nanosails consist of synthesis, fabrication, assembly and performance evaluation.
The propulsion technologies of nanocrafts need to be hybrid due to the application environment in interstellar travel. The hybrid
power generation systems of nanocrafts need to be hybrid to combine the kinetic and photovoltaic energy sources with different types
of nanobatteries, self-configurable and self-optimizable to allow for the reconfiguration and optimization of the nanocrafts when the
nanosails or nanobatteries are deteriorated, and self-protectable and self-healing to keep the key power modules away from potential
harms while maintaining the basic functionalities when the power systems are dysfunctional, corrupted or damaged. To maintain the
intelligent systems with higher level autonomy on space operation, nanoscale space energy systems (nano SES) are proposed for
nanocrafts to generate electrical power from the cosmic environment. The nano SES are not only designed with the laser beaming
systems to trigger and accelerate the nanocrafts from the Earth ground, but also the autonomous charging systems during the long-term
interstellar travel.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This study is supported in part by the Key Research and Development Plan of Zhejiang, China (2021C03180 and 2021C03181), the
Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2021B0707030002), and the Science Foundation of Donghai
Laboratory (Grant No. DH-2022KF01004). PJ acknowledges the Startup Fund of the Hundred Talent Program at the Zhejiang Uni
versity, China.
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Mechanical Energy Metamaterials in Interstellar Travel

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Mechanical Energy Metamaterials in Interstellar Travel

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Progress in Materials Science 137 (2023) 101132

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Progress in Materials Science

Mechanical energy metamaterials in interstellar travel

Mechanical metamaterials and functional materials

GNS Graphene nanoplatelets

TiO2 Titanium dioxide

Advanced manufacturing technology

Mechanical [4,12,19,21,22,23,32,34,37,86,136,141,143,167,170,172, [54,56,65,74,144,253,257,269,270, [1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,13,14,

2. Characterization and functionality exploration of mechanical metamaterials

2.1. Current progress of mechanical metamaterials

2.1.1. Category and characteristics

Category Origami metamaterials [84,138,146,154,179,180,181,182,183,

2.1.2. Advantages and challenges

2.2. Functionality exploration of mechanical metamaterials by energy materials

2.2.1. Soft electronic and other energy materials

2.2.2. Mechanical metamaterials made by energy materials

resistivity of the conductive materials.

2.2.3. Mechanical and electrical properties of mechanical energy metamaterials

2.2.4. Controllability of electromechanical properties

2.3. Mechanical energy metamaterials for energy harvesting

2.3.1. Mechanical piezoelectric metamaterials

2.3.2. Mechanical triboelectric metamaterials

2.3.3. Other types of energy metamaterials

Excitation Electrical output

MPM • Origami/ • Folding piezoelectric films in origami metamaterials; F = 100 N P = 78.34 μW

3. Energy challenge and current technology in space exploration

3.1. Advent and development of space exploration

Orion US Ship Manned Rocket 8.9 km/s Practical 1958

Status Reason for inactive or failure

Earth Transit 4A 1961 Inactive Decommissioned

Status Reason for inactive or failure

Bepi-Columbo Bepi-Colombo - MMO (MIO-JAXA) 2018 Active

3.2. Characteristics and challenges in the cosmic environment

Alpha Centauri 4.3 • Closest to the Sun

3.3. Propulsion technology and power demand in space exploration

3.3.1. Main propulsion technology in space exploration

3.3.2. Power demand and current battery technology

Chemical Battery Li-SO2 Probe • Galileo One Galileo

4. Emerging mechanical energy metamaterials in interstellar travel

4.1. Applications of energy materials in interstellar travel

4.1.1. Energy sources in the cosmic environment

4.1.2. Performance, limitation and potential solution

4.2. Design and optimization of mechanical energy metamaterials

4.2.1. Artificial intelligence in energy materials

error (RMSE), specificity, standard deviation of error (SDE), etc. [442].

LiSO3F, Li3InCl6, Li2HIO,

4.2.2. Application paradigms of artificial intelligence in mechanical metamaterials

4.2.3. Material discovery and structural optimization of mechanical energy metamaterials

5. Space energy systems based on mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails

5.1. Performance-oriented mechanical energy metamaterial nanosails

6. Summary and future outlook

Declaration of Competing Interest

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