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Viscosity Metamaterials

Metamaterials are composite structures whose properties arise from a mesoscale organization of their constituents. Provided this organization occurs on scales smaller than the characteristic lengths associated with their response, it is often possible to design such materials to have properties that are otherwise impossible to achieve with conventional materials -- including negative indexes of refraction, perfect absorption of electromagnetic radiation, and negative Poisson ratios. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a new material class: viscosity metamaterials. Specifically, we show that we are able to rapidly drive large viscosity oscillations in a shear-thickened fluid using acoustic perturbations with kHz to MHz frequencies. Because the time scale for these oscillations can be orders of magnitude smaller than the timescales associated with the global material flow, we can construct metamaterials whose resulting viscosity is a composite of the thickened, high-viscosity and dethickened, low viscosity states. Such viscosity metamaterials can be used to engineer a variety of surprising properties including negative viscosities, a response that is inconceivable with conventional fluids. The high degree of control over the resulting viscosity, the ease with which they can be accessed, and the variety of exotic properties achievable by viscosity metamaterials make them attractive for uses in technologies for which control over fluid flows and their instabilities are critical, ranging from coatings to cloaking to 3D printing.