Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 12, Issue 9, Pages 11163-11170Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b20124
Keywords
liquid metal; diffusion; porous materials; capillary force; rapid prototyping
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51828503, U1713206, 61503270]
- University of Wollongong
- NSFC [61873339]
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2016M590497]
- National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20190096]
- State Key Laboratory of Applied Optics
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Gallium-based room-temperature liquid metals have enormous potential for realizing various applications in electronic devices, heat flow management, and soft actuators. Filling narrow spaces with a liquid metal is of great importance in rapid prototyping and circuit printing. However, it is relatively difficult to stretch or spread liquid metals into desired patterns because of their large surface tension. Here, we propose a method to fabricate a particle-based porous material which can enable the rapid and spontaneous diffusion of liquid metals within the material under a capillary force. Remarkably, such a method can allow liquid metal to diffuse along complex structures and even overcome the effect of gravity despite their large densities. We further demonstrate that the developed method can be utilized for prototyping complex three-dimensional (3D) structures via direct casting and connecting individual parts or by 3D printing. As such, we believe that the presented technique holds great promise for the development of additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping, and soft electronics using liquid metals.
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