Melodins

Melodins are a term used in speculative science and science fiction to describe nanoscale particles or molecules that can couple mechanical vibrations and electromagnetic radiation to store and transmit information.

Typically envisioned as core-shell nanostructures with a rigid mechanical core acting as a resonator and an optically active shell mediating light interaction, melodins are said to exhibit tunable resonance frequencies and the ability to self-assemble into networks.

Proposed mechanisms include phonon–photon coupling and non-linear energy exchange, enabling information encoding through discrete resonant modes and reconfiguration under external stimuli such as light or acoustic waves.

Though widely discussed in speculative works and thought experiments about nanoscale information processing, melodins have no established experimental basis in real materials.

Variants such as melodin-1 and melodin-2 are described across different works, differing mainly in resonant ranges, materials, or assembly behavior.

Related areas include metamaterials, phononics, nanomaterials, and molecular information processing concepts.