近日，美国麻省理工学院Fakhri, Nikta团队研究了非互易活性固体中工作生成循环的选择性激发。这一研究成果于2026年2月3日发表在《自然—物理学》杂志上。

活性物质中涌现的非互易性驱动着自组织态的形成，其行为超越了平衡系统的范畴。

研究组通过由活海星胚胎构成的活性固体，展示了系统在稳定涨落态与稳定振荡态之间的自发转换。这些非平衡稳态源自微观尺度的两种手性对称破缺机制：胚胎个体自转产生宏观奇数弹性响应，而转轴进动则引发活性陀螺弹性。在振荡态中，研究组观察到可通过机械扰动激发的长波光学振动模式。

由于振动模式的相互耦合，这种可激发的非互易性固体无需循环调控即可产生非平衡功。该工作提出了一类新型可调控非平衡过程，为设计与控制软体机器人群和自适应活性材料提供了理论框架，同时为工程系统中利用非互易相互作用开辟了新路径。

附：英文原文

Title: Selective excitation of work-generating cycles in non-reciprocal living solids

Author: Chao, Yu-Chen, Gokhale, Shreyas, Lin, Lisa, Hastewell, Alasdair, Bacanu, Alexandru, Chen, Yuchao, Li, Junang, Liu, Jinghui, Lee, Hyunseok, Dunkel, Jrn, Fakhri, Nikta

Issue&Volume: 2026-02-03

Abstract: Emergent non-reciprocity in active matter drives the formation of self-organized states that transcend the behaviours of equilibrium systems. Here we show that active solids composed of living starfish embryos spontaneously transition between stable fluctuating and stable oscillatory steady states. The non-equilibrium steady states arise from two distinct chiral symmetry-breaking mechanisms at the microscopic scale: the spinning of individual embryos resulting in a macroscopic odd elastic response and the precession of their rotation axis leading to active gyroelasticity. In the oscillatory state, we observe long-wavelength optical vibrational modes that can be excited through mechanical perturbations. These excitable non-reciprocal solids exhibit non-equilibrium work generation without cycling protocols, due to coupled vibrational modes. Our work introduces a new class of tunable non-equilibrium processes and offers a framework for designing and controlling soft robotic swarms and adaptive active materials while opening new possibilities for harnessing non-reciprocal interactions in engineered systems.

DOI: 10.1038/s41567-026-03178-7

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-026-03178-7