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Stanford scientist creates color-shifting adaptive material
This development creates new opportunities in the field of nanophotonics.
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Rwittika Chakraborty
- Sat, 17, Jan 2026
- 03:17 EST
- 9
Indian-origin Stanford doctoral student Siddharth Doshi. / Stanford University (stanford.edu/)
Indian-origin Stanford doctoral student Siddharth Doshi, along with other researchers of the university, has developed a new flexible material, similar to the patterning of an octopus, that can swell into different textures and colors.
Doshi, a PhD student in materials science and engineering at Stanford University, is the first author on this research paper. A paper published Jan. 7 in Nature mentioned that this new material, created by him and his fellow researchers, can create patterns in seconds at resolutions finer than a human hair.
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Species like octopus and cuttlefish, which are considered masters of disguise, were the inspiration behind the creation of this material. Researchers sought to replicate these camouflaging abilities with synthetic materials.
Speaking about this newly-created material and its possible utilities in the future, Doshi told Stanford,
“Textures are crucial to the way we experience objects, both in how they look and how they feel. These animals can physically change their bodies at close to the micron scale, and now we can dynamically control the topography of a material – and the visual properties linked to it – at this same scale.”
The development could lead to more effective dynamic camouflage, both for humans and for robotic systems, and potentially help create flexible, color-changing displays for wearable technologies.
It also creates new opportunities in the field of nanophotonics, which uses the precise manipulation of light and optics for advancements in electronics, encryption, biology, and other areas.
Doshi is a Meta PhD Fellow, and his research is focused on developing electrically tunable active optical metasurfaces using soft polymers, enabling applications ranging from on-the-fly reconfigurable optical computing devices to wearable photonics.
Earlier, Doshi has earned his Bachelor's degree in Engineering from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) and spent time in industry designing award-winning consumer products.
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