A nanolattice is a synthetic porous material consisting of nanometer-size members patterned into an ordered lattice structure, like a space frame. The nanolattice is a newly emerged material class that has been rapidly developed over the last decade. Nanolattices redefine the limits of the material property space. Despite being composed of 50-99% of air, nanolattices are very mechanically robust because they take advantage of size-dependent properties that we generally see in nanoparticles, nanowires, and thin films. The most typical mechanical properties of nanolattices include ultrahigh strength, damage tolerance, and high stiffness. Thus, nanolattices have a wide range of applications.
Driven by the evolution of 3D printing techniques, nanolattices aiming to exploit beneficial material size effects through miniaturized lattice designs were first developed in the mid-2010s,. Nanolattices are the smallest man-made lattice truss structures and a class of metamaterials that derive their properties from both their geometry (general metamaterial definition) and the small size of their elements. Therefore, they can possess effective properties not found in nature, and that may not be achieved with larger-scale lattices of the same geometry.