a new "smart materials" process - multiple memory material technology - developed by university of waterloo engineering researchers promises to revolutionize the manufacture of diverse（不同的） products such as medical devices, microelectromechanical systems (mems微型机电系统), printers, hard drives, automotive 1, valves（阀门，瓣膜） and actuators（制动器） . the breakthrough technology will provide engineers with much more freedom and creativity by enabling far greater functionality to be incorporated into medical devices such as stents（支架） , 2（背带，吊带） and hearing aids than is currently possible.
smart materials, also known as shape memory 3（形状记忆合金） , have been around for several decades and are well known for their ability to remember a pre-determined shape.
traditional memory materials remember one shape at one temperature and a second shape at a different temperature. until now they have been limited to change shape at only one temperature. now with the new waterloo technology they can remember multiple different memories, each one with a different shape.
"this ground-breaking technology makes smart materials even smarter," said ibraheem khan, a research engineer and graduate student working with norman zhou, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics（机电一体化） engineering. "we have developed a technology that 4（嵌入，植入） several memories in a 5（整体的，庞大的） smart material. in essence, a single material can be programmed to remember more shapes, making it smarter than previous technologies."
the patent 6 technology, which is available for 7, allows virtually any memory material to be quickly and easily 8 with additional local memories.
the transition zone area can be as small as a few microns（微米） in width with multiple zones, each having a 9（离散的） transition temperature. as the processed shape memory material is subject to changing temperature, each treated zone will change shape at its respective transition temperature. as well, transition zones created side-by-side allow for a unique and smooth shape change in response to changing temperature.
several prototypes（原型） have been developed to demonstrate this pioneering technology.
one 10 a transformer robot. the robot's limbs transform with increasing temperature at discrete temperatures, whereas in conventional shape memory technology this is limited to only one 11 temperature.
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