smart material

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a material that responds in a controlled, predictable, and reversible manner to external stimuli such as temperature, stress, electric field, magnetic field, pH, or light, transducing energy between different physical domains in a way that can be exploited for sensing, actuation, or energy conversion; classes of smart materials include shape-memory alloys such as nitinol that recover a preset form upon heating, piezoelectric ceramics that convert mechanical energy to electricity, magnetorheological fluids that stiffen in magnetic fields, and thermochromic and photochromic materials that change colour in response to temperature or light; smart materials are foundational to adaptive structures, robotics, biomedical implants, and responsive building facades