Tag Archives: liquid metal

Liquid metal taking shape

A North Carolina State University July 9, 2013 news release (also on EurekAlert) avoids a Terminator 2: Judgment Day movie reference (which I am making) in its description of building 3D structures out of liquid metal,

“It’s difficult to create structures out of liquids, because liquids want to bead up. But we’ve found that a liquid metal alloy of gallium and indium reacts to the oxygen in the air at room temperature to form a ‘skin’ that allows the liquid metal structures to retain their shapes,” says Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work.

The researchers developed multiple techniques for creating these structures, which can be used to connect electronic components in three dimensions. White it is relatively straightforward to pattern the metal “in plane” – meaning all on the same level – these liquid metal structures can also form shapes that reach up or down.

One technique involves stacking droplets of liquid metal on top of each other, much like a stack of oranges at the supermarket. The droplets adhere to one another, but retain their shape – they do not merge into a single, larger droplet. Video of the process is available here.

Another technique injects liquid metal into a polymer template, so that the metal takes on a specific shape. The template is then dissolved, leaving the bare, liquid metal in the desired shape. The researchers also developed techniques for creating liquid metal wires, which retain their shape even when held perpendicular to the substrate.

Dickey’s team is currently exploring how to further develop these techniques, as well as how to use them in various electronics applications and in conjunction with established 3-D printing technologies.

The lead researcher, Michael Dickey has produced an image of liquid metal drops in a 3D structure,

Researchers have developed three-dimensional structures out of liquid metal. Image: Michael Dickey.

Researchers have developed three-dimensional structures out of liquid metal. Image: Michael Dickey.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the published paper,

3D Printing of Free Standing Liquid Metal Microstructures by Collin Ladd,  Ju-Hee So, John Muth, Michael D. Dickey. Article first published online: 4 JUL 2013 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201301400

Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

This paper is behind a paywall.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with Terminator 2 and doesn’t understand why it was mentioned  in the context of this posting, here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia essay (Note: Links and footnotes have been removed),

The T-1000 is a fictional robotic assassin and the main antagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Created by the series main antagonist Skynet, the T-1000 is a shapeshifter whose body is composed of a mimetic poly-alloy (liquid metal) body that allows it to assume the form of other objects or people of equal mass. [emphasis mine]

Levitator helps turn liquid cement into liquid metal

Scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory have found a way to transform liquid cement into liquid metal according to a May 27,2013 news item on ScienceDaily,

In a move that would make the Alchemists of King Arthur’s time green with envy, scientists have unraveled the formula for turning liquid cement into liquid metal. This makes cement a semi-conductor and opens up its use in the profitable consumer electronics marketplace for thin films, protective coatings, and computer chips.

“This new material has lots of applications, including as thin-film resistors used in liquid-crystal displays, basically the flat panel computer monitor that you are probably reading this from at the moment,” said Chris Benmore, a physicist from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory who worked with a team of scientists from Japan, Finland and Germany to take the “magic” out of the cement-to-metal transformation. Benmore and Shinji Kohara from Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute/SPring-8 led the research effort.

The May 27, 2013 Argonne National Laboratory press release by Tona Kunz details how the cement-to-metal transformation is performed (Note: Links have been removed),

The team of scientists studied mayenite, a component of alumina cement made of calcium and aluminum oxides. They melted it at temperatures of 2,000 degrees Celsius using an aerodynamic levitator with carbon dioxide laser beam heating. The material was processed in different atmospheres to control the way that oxygen bonds in the resulting glass. The levitator keeps the hot liquid from touching any container surfaces and forming crystals. This let the liquid cool into glassy state that can trap electrons in the way needed for electronic conduction. The levitation method was developed specifically for in-situ measurement at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source by a team led by Benmore.

The scientists discovered that the conductivity was created when the free electrons were “trapped” in the cage-like structures that form in the glass. The trapped of electrons provided a mechanism for conductivity similar to the mechanism that occurs in metals.

To uncover the details of this process, scientists combined several experimental techniques and analyzed them using a supercomputer.  They confirmed the ideas in experiments using different X-ray techniques at Spring 8 in Japan combined with earlier measurements at the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source and the Advanced Photon Source.

As for why transforming liquid cement into liquid metal might be worthwhile (from the Argonne National Laboratory press release),

This change demonstrates a unique way to make metallic-glass material, which has positive attributes including better resistance to corrosion than traditional metal, less brittleness than traditional glass, conductivity, low energy loss in magnetic fields, and fluidity for ease of processing and molding.