Multistable pendula as mechanical analogs of ferroelectricity

Magnetically-controlled and elastically-coupled multistable pendula are shown to serve as versatile structural analogs of ferroelectric crystals, mimicking atomic-level phenomena of domain patterning, domain nucleation, and Allen–Cahn-type domain wall motion under an applied bias, as found, e.g., in ferroelectric switching. We demonstrate the quantitative analogy with material-level transitions via a homogenized continuum description, including structural-level realizations of temperature and lattice defects. Existing photonic, phononic, and topological metamaterials are thus complemented by a new mechanical analog of the nonlinear dissipative kinetics of structural transformations.