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Thin films

Folded in hierarchy

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 907–909 (2011)Cite this article

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Elastic thin films attached to a foundation under compression develop wrinkles, which in turn can generate invaginated folds. Hierarchical patterns of localized folds have now been observed in thin films under biaxial compression, which show intriguing resemblance to fracture patterns in drying pastes and to venation networks in leaves.

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Figure 1: Hierarchical folding of a thin film.
Figure 2: Hierarchical patterns of a, fractures in drying pastes (typical spacing of 80 μm between cracks)11,13, b, localized folds in the thin films of Kim et al.6 and c, veins in the mature dicotyledon leaf11 exhibit remarkable resemblance.

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  1. Pedro M. Reis is in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Civil & Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts 02139-1713, USA,

    Pedro M. Reis

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  1. Pedro M. Reis
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Correspondence to Pedro M. Reis.

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Reis, P. Folded in hierarchy. Nature Mater 10, 907–909 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3186

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