posted on 2020-06-20, 12:03authored byZachary
J. Farrell, Carl J. Thrasher, Alex E. Flynn, Christopher E. Tabor
Room-temperature
liquid-metal particles are a burgeoning material
platform for stimuli-responsive electronics, self-healing circuitry,
stretchable/flexible conductors, drug delivery, and wearable devices.
The ability to chemically tune the nanoscale surface oxide of liquid-metal
particles is critical to these applications. To this end, a method
of silanizing liquid gallium alloy particles has been developed. The
benefits of alkoxysilane ligands are demonstrated by orthogonal functionalizations
to produce chemically diverse, multifunctional hybrid liquid-metal
nanoparticles. Additionally, architected stretchable conductors, called
polymerized liquid-metal networks, were fabricated using hitherto
inaccessible chemistries with enhanced electromechanical performance.
These advancements have downstream implications for particle processing,
device fabrication, long-term stability, and functional behaviors
of liquid-metal particle systems.