Poisson's ratio and modern materials

In comparing a material's resistance to distort under mechanical load rather than to alter in volume, Poisson's ratio offers the fundamental metric by which to compare the performance of any material when strained elastically. The numerical limits are set by ½ and -1, between which all stable isotropic materials are found. With new experiments, computational methods and routes to materials synthesis, we assess what Poisson's ratio means in the...