Abstract
Liquid metal (LM) materials, including pure gallium (Ga) LM, eutectic alloys and their composites with organic polymers and inorganic nanoparticles, are cutting-edge functional materials owing to their outstanding electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, extraordinary mechanical compliance, deformability and excellent biocompatibility. The unique properties of LM-based materials at room temperatures can overcome the drawbacks of the conventional electronic devices, particularly high thermal, electrical conductivities and their fluidic property, which would open tremendous opportunities for the fundamental research and practical applications of stretchable and wearable electronic devices. Therefore, research interest has been increasingly devoted to the fabrication methodologies of LM nanoparticles and their functional composites. In this review, we intend to present an overview of the state-of-art protocols for the synthesis of Ga-based materials, to introduce their potential applications in the fields ranging from wearable electronics, energy storage batteries and energy harvesting devices to bio-applications, and to discuss challenges and opportunities in future studies.
Highlights
Accepted: August 2021Liquid metals (LMs) are metals that can stay as a liquid near room temperature because of their low melting points, such as mercury (Hg, −38.8 ◦ C), francium (Fr, ◦ C), cesium (Cs, 28.5 ◦ C), rubidium (Rb, 39.3 ◦ C) and gallium (Ga, 29.8 ◦ C) [1]
We summarize the recent advances of the synthesis of Ga based materials and their wide-range applications including soft electronics, energy storage and harvesting devices and biomedical materials
Due to its fluidic nature, LM materials can be readily manufactured as conductive ink to be printed on a wide range of substrates and patterned by diverse ways for the production of soft electronics
Summary
Liquid metals (LMs) are metals that can stay as a liquid near room temperature because of their low melting points, such as mercury (Hg, −38.8 ◦ C), francium (Fr, 27 ◦ C), cesium (Cs, 28.5 ◦ C), rubidium (Rb, 39.3 ◦ C) and gallium (Ga, 29.8 ◦ C) [1]. Nanomaterials 2021, 11, 2246 widely used in many areas, such as non-destructive contact in large-area junctions [9,10,11], nanomedicine carriers in drug delivery systems [12,13] and soft robotics [14,15,16] To further enrich their functionalities, LM composites have been synthesized to build new material systems in which LMs/alloys are suspended as nanodroplets within a soft polymer matrix or mixed with other inorganic nanoparticles. We briefly summarize the latest development in the synthetic approaches for Ga based materials including Ga particles, alloys and their composites with polymers or rigid inorganic particles and their applications in such as soft electronics, energy storage and harvesting systems and bio-applications
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