Micro architected porous material with high strength and controllable stiffness

This paper reports the engineering of large area cellular solids with controllable stiffness and specific strengths up to 230 MPa/(Mg/m³), which is stronger than most high strength alloys including 4143 steel and Ti-6Al-4V. The high strength arises from the size-based strengthening of the nm-sized struts. The cellular solid's porosity can be varied from 30 to 90% to control the specific stiffness from 4-20 GPa/(Mg/m3). The cellular solid's regular microporous architecture and self-assembly based fabrication allow nanometer to micrometer control over the hierarchical geometry and chemistry, which enable large area materials with high strength and controllable stiffness.