Compositional Design of Surface Oxides in Gallium–Indium Alloys

Abstract

Room-temperature liquid metal alloys encompass a highly versatile family of materials possessing a unique set of chemical, electronic, biological, and mechanical properties. The surface oxide of liquid metals has a direct influence on these properties and is often composed of one of the major alloy components (i.e., gallium or indium). However, this is not a foregone conclusion, as the identity of the surface oxide can be altered by the addition of minority elements into the liquid metal. Through judicious choice of a minority alloying metal, the composition of the oxide and therefore the resulting molten alloy's properties are significantly modified. We demonstrate this by adding a small amount (∼5%) of several thermodynamically favorable alloying elements (X = Zn, Mg, Al) to eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn), resulting in a new class of alloys with designed surface oxide compositions that we term XGaIn. Using both STEM-EDS and XPS, XGaIn alloys are shown to form oxide layers enriched in the lowest-redox element as expected based on the thermodynamics of the alloy system. This approach is shown to be generalizable across both Ga and non-Ga-based liquid metal alloy compositions. XGaIn alloys with added Zn and Mg are shown to have strong antimicrobial activity, which has exciting implications for the development of flexible electronic medical devices and sensors.

Galvanic Replacement Synthesis of VOx@EGaIn–PEG Core–Shell Nanohybrids for Peroxidase Mimics

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“…40,41 Based on the thermodynamics principle, both gallium and indium, as the components of the LM, can be oxidized to form the vanadium oxidant in the presence of Na 3 VO 4 . 42 However, the galvanic reaction prefers the component with lower standard reduction potential, which provides a more negative Gibbs free energy and greater thermodynamic driving force. Considering the lower reduction potential of gallium (E°[Ga 3+ /Ga 0 ] = −0.529 V vs SHE) 43 compared with indium ([In 3+ /In 0 ] = −0.34 V vs SHE), 44 the Gibbs free energy for the replacement of gallium (ΔG = −1.277 eV) is also lower than indium (ΔG = −1.088 eV) Thus, we speculate that the oxidation of gallium is expected to be the main process rather…”

Investigation of healing electronic pressure-sensitive soft switch based on liquid metal microfiber

“…LMs exhibit immense potential for various applications [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] due to their unique combination of liquid and metal properties. However, the challenges presented by the high surface tension and density of LMs during the manufacture of intricate electronic devices cannot be overlooked [19].…”

Stretchable and recyclable In3SnBi/PU nanofiber composite as flexible sensors for human motion monitoring

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