Engineers at McGill University have developed a new class of ultra-thin, shape-shifting materials that can move, fold, and reconfigure themselves—much like animated origami.
The breakthrough could help power a new generation of soft robots that are safer, lighter, and far more adaptable than today’s rigid machines.
Unlike traditional robots built from hard metals and motors, soft robots are designed to move gently and flexibly.
This makes them especially useful for applications such as medical devices that navigate inside the human body, wearable technologies that sit comfortably on the skin, or smart packaging that reacts to changes in the environment.
However, building materials that are both flexible and capable of complex, controlled motion has remained a major challenge.
The new research, led by Professor Hamid Akbarzadeh and Professor Marta Cerruti, focuses on graphene oxide, a carbon-based material related to graphene.
When formed into ultra-thin, paper-like sheets and carefully folded, graphene oxide can become surprisingly strong, flexible, and responsive.
The team demonstrated that these folded sheets can be programmed to walk, twist, flip, and even sense their own movement.
Two related studies, published in the journals Materials Horizons and Advanced Science, show how these materials can be manufactured at larger scales and controlled in different ways. In one study, the folded structures respond to humidity.
When the air becomes moist, the material opens and changes shape; when it dries, it folds back again. This allows the material to move without motors, wires, or batteries, using only changes in the surrounding environment.
In the second study, the researchers added tiny magnetic particles to the graphene oxide films. This made it possible to guide and control the movement of the folded structures remotely using a magnetic field.
With this approach, the materials can be steered from a distance, opening up possibilities for applications where direct contact or wiring is impractical.
An especially important feature of these materials is their ability to sense their own motion. As graphene oxide bends and folds, its electrical properties change.
By measuring these changes, the material can detect how it is moving in real time. This means the same structure can act both as an actuator, which produces movement, and as a sensor, which monitors that movement.
According to the researchers, combining movement and sensing in a single, flexible material marks a major step forward. It allows for systems that can adapt their shape on demand, respond to their surroundings, and provide feedback without added components.
These advances could eventually lead to soft robots that are more responsive, efficient, and capable than anything available today. From gentle surgical tools to smart materials that react intelligently to the world around them, shape-shifting graphene oxide may help bring soft robotics closer to everyday use.
