Manipulation of Liquid Metals on a Graphite Surface

Liang Hu; Lei Wang; Yujie Ding; Shihui Zhan; Jing Liu

doi:10.1002/adma.201601639

Manipulation of Liquid Metals on a Graphite Surface

Adv Mater. 2016 Nov;28(41):9210-9217. doi: 10.1002/adma.201601639. Epub 2016 Aug 29.

Authors

Liang Hu¹, Lei Wang¹, Yujie Ding¹, Shihui Zhan¹, Jing Liu^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing Key Lab of CryoBiomedical Engineering and Key Lab of Cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
² Beijing Key Lab of CryoBiomedical Engineering and Key Lab of Cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China. [email protected].
³ Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China. [email protected].

PMID: 27571211
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201601639

Abstract

Liquid metals (LMs) in an alkaline electrolyte, when placed on a graphite surface, are able to be manipulated into desired flat, stable shapes with sharp angles, like triangles. Unique transformations and worm-like anti-gravity upslope LM locomotion under a low-voltage electric field are also revealed.

Keywords: graphite; liquid metals; planar and anti-gravity locomotion; shaping; surface tension.