Beyond wrinkles: Multimodal surface instabilities for multifunctional patterning

Biological surfaces display fascinating topographic patterns such as corrugated blood cells and wrinkled dog skin. These patterns have inspired an emerging technology in materials science and engineering to create self-organized surface patterns by harnessing mechanical instabilities. Compared with patterns generated by conventional lithography, surface instability patterns or so-called ruga patterns are low cost, are easy to fabricate, and can be dynamically controlled by tuning various physical stimuli—offering new opportunities in materials and device engineering across multiple length scales. This article provides a systematic review on the fundamental mechanisms and innovative functions of surface instability patterns by categorizing various modes of instabilities into a quantitatively defined thermodynamic phase diagram, and by highlighting their engineering and biological applications.