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Liu J, Song L, He Z, Wang S, Zhang W, Yang H, Li F, Li S, Wang J, Xiao H, Xu D, Liu Y, Wu Y, Wang JQ, Shui X, Hu YC, Shang J, Li RW. Size Dependent Phase Transformation of Liquid Gallium. Small 2024; 20:e2305798. [PMID: 37849041 DOI: 10.1002/smll.202305798] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2023] [Revised: 10/08/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023]
Abstract
As the most popular liquid metal (LM), gallium (Ga) and its alloys are emerging as functional materials due to their unique combination of fluidic and metallic properties near room temperature. As an important branch of utilizing LMs, micro- and submicron-particles of Ga-based LM are widely employed in wearable electronics, catalysis, energy, and biomedicine. Meanwhile, the phase transition is crucial not only for the applications based on this reversible transformation process, but also for the solidification temperature at which fluid properties are lost. While Ga has several solid phases and exhibits unusual size-dependent phase behavior. This complex process makes the phase transition and undercooling of Ga uncontrollable, which considerably affects the application performance. In this work, extensive (nano-)calorimetry experiments are performed to investigate the polymorph selection mechanism during liquid Ga crystallization. It is surprisingly found that the crystallization temperature and crystallization pathway to either α -Ga or β -Ga can be effectively engineered by thermal treatment and droplet size. The polymorph selection process is suggested to be highly relevant to the capability of forming covalent bonds in the equilibrium supercooled liquid. The observation of two different crystallization pathways depending on the annealing temperature may indicate that there exist two different liquid phases in Ga.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jinyun Liu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- School of Future Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
| | - Lijian Song
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Zidong He
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
| | - Shengding Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Wuxu Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
| | - Huali Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Fali Li
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Shengbin Li
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Jianing Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
| | - Huiyun Xiao
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
| | - Dan Xu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
| | - Yiwei Liu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Yuanzhao Wu
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Jun-Qiang Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Xiaoxue Shui
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Yuan-Chao Hu
- Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong, 523808, P. R. China
| | - Jie Shang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
| | - Run-Wei Li
- CAS Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Devices, Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Magnetic Materials and Application Technology, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, P. R. China
- School of Future Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
- Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China
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Liao J, Majidi C, Sitti M. Liquid Metal Actuators: A Comparative Analysis of Surface Tension Controlled Actuation. Adv Mater 2024; 36:e2300560. [PMID: 37358049 DOI: 10.1002/adma.202300560] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2023] [Revised: 06/09/2023] [Indexed: 06/27/2023]
Abstract
Liquid metals, with their unique combination of electrical and mechanical properties, offer great opportunities for actuation based on surface tension modulation. Thanks to the scaling laws of surface tension, which can be electrochemically controlled at low voltages, liquid metal actuators stand out from other soft actuators for their remarkable characteristics such as high contractile strain rates and higher work densities at smaller length scales. This review summarizes the principles of liquid metal actuators and discusses their performance as well as theoretical pathways toward higher performances. The objective is to provide a comparative analysis of the ongoing development of liquid metal actuators. The design principles of the liquid metal actuators are analyzed, including low-level elemental principles (kinematics and electrochemistry), mid-level structural principles (reversibility, integrity, and scalability), and high-level functionalities. A wide range of practical use cases of liquid metal actuators from robotic locomotion and object manipulation to logic and computation is reviewed. From an energy perspective, strategies are compared for coupling the liquid metal actuators with an energy source toward fully untethered robots. The review concludes by offering a roadmap of future research directions of liquid metal actuators.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiahe Liao
- Physical Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Heisenbergstr. 3, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany
| | - Carmel Majidi
- Robotics Institute, Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA
| | - Metin Sitti
- Physical Intelligence Department, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Heisenbergstr. 3, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany
- Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zürich, Zürich, 8092, Switzerland
- School of Medicine, College of Engineering, Koç University, Istanbul, 34450, Turkey
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Joshipura ID, Nguyen CK, Quinn C, Yang J, Morales DH, Santiso E, Daeneke T, Truong VK, Dickey MD. An atomically smooth container: Can the native oxide promote supercooling of liquid gallium? iScience 2023; 26:106493. [PMID: 37091232 PMCID: PMC10113873 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106493] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2022] [Revised: 03/05/2023] [Accepted: 03/20/2023] [Indexed: 04/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Metals tend to supercool-that is, they freeze at temperatures below their melting points. In general, supercooling is less favorable when liquids are in contact with nucleation sites such as rough surfaces. Interestingly, bulk gallium (Ga) can significantly supercool, even when it is in contact with heterogeneous surfaces that could provide nucleation sites. We hypothesized that the native oxide on Ga provides an atomically smooth interface that prevents Ga from directly contacting surfaces, and thereby promotes supercooling. Although many metals form surface oxides, Ga is a convenient metal for studying supercooling because its melting point of 29.8°C is near room temperature. Using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), we show that freezing of Ga with the oxide occurs at a lower temperature (-15.6 ± 3.5°C) than without the oxide (6.9 ± 2.0°C when the oxide is removed by HCl). We also demonstrate that the oxide enhances supercooling via macroscopic observations of freezing. These findings explain why Ga supercools and have implications for emerging applications of Ga that rely on it staying in the liquid state.
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