Abstract:

Cephalopods are masters of disguise, and their skin components have served as remarkable sources of inspiration for artificial devices. This presentation will begin with a concise overview of the structures and functions of dermal components in cephalopods critical to cephalopod camouflage capabilities and introduce a copper–polymer composite system as an example of cephalopod–inspired adaptive devices. This system adopted the micro to submicroscale wrinkles and nanoscale protuberances from cephalopod skin cells. Through controlled radial strains applied via mechanical or electrical actuation, the fabricated system manifested surfaces with morphological features across different length scales, resulting in tunable optical and thermal properties.