Abstract
Gallium based room-temperature liquid metals possess extremely valuable properties, such as low toxicity, low vapor pressure, and high thermal and electrical conductivity enabling them to become suitable substitutes for mercury and beyond in wide range of applications. When exposed to air, a native oxide layer forms on the surface of gallium based liquid metals which mechanically stabilizes the liquid. By removing or reconstructing the oxide skin shape and state of liquid metal droplets and flows can be manipulated/actuated desirably. This can occur manually or in the presence/absence of a magnetic/electric field. These methods lead to numerous useful applications such as soft electronics, reconfigurable devices and soft robots. In this mini-review, we summarize the most recent progresses achieved on liquid metal droplet generation and actuation of gallium based liquid metals with/without an external force.
Highlights
Room-temperature gallium liquid metal alloys have drawn increasing research interests recently
Demonstrating superior performances in various aspects, gallium-based liquid metals have been explored for many novel applications, such as microfluidics devices (Khoshmanesh et al, 2017), stretchable electronics (Wang et al, 2015c; Bartlett et al, 2016), reconfigurable devices (Wang et al, 2015b), electronics cooling (Ma and Liu, 2007), vacuum pumping (Tang et al, 2015a), and painted conductive electrodes in liquid droplet actuation (Eaker et al, 2017)
One of the leading research groups working on room-temperature liquid metals, discussed numerous emerging capabilities, and applications of gallium-based liquid metal devices enabled by the native oxide layer (Dickey, 2014, 2017)
Summary
Room-temperature gallium liquid metal alloys have drawn increasing research interests recently These alloys can flow and can be shaped to some extent. An oxide layer quickly forms on the surface of liquid metals, which is undesirable in some applications (Morley et al, 2008), since it disrupts the wetting behavior and impedes physical and electrical contacts (Giguere and Lamontagne, 1954). That said, this oxide layer is not always problematic, since it can help stabilize the liquid mechanically. Review of Liquid Metals progress made in manipulation and actuation of gallium-based liquid metals (both in droplet and flow scale) and summarize the latest applicable techniques in this field
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