Fig. 4: Self-mergence of untethered ETACs (electromagnetically transitional and actuatable material-based continuums).

a Illustration of self-mergence principles. Self-mergence can be implemented by different mergence strategies: face-to-face, line-to-line, and point-to-point. N, P, F with subscripts denote the ETAMs (electromagnetically transitional and actuatable material-based materials) regions of corresponding sub-continuums. b Stretching tests of self-merged ETAM samples. Failures happened at the F/P regions regardless of the stretching direction and material types, suggesting that the bonding strength between P and F/N is sufficient to take external loads. c–e Real-time images show self-mergence processes enabled by different strategies that realize various enhanced functions. Infrared imaging was conducted to track the thermodynamic performances during the self-mergence processes. Scale bar: 1 cm. See temperature monitoring in Supplementary Material S15. See further descriptions in Supplementary Material S25. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.