Handbook of Liquid Metals

This handbook systematically collects the latest scientific and technological knowledge on liquid metals obtained so far in this cutting edge frontier. Conventional materials such as metals, polymers, composites, ceramics and naturally derived matters, may not perform well when facing certain technological challenges. At around room temperature, most of such materials mainly stay at solid state and are often difficult to shape due to their high melting point. Meanwhile, although classical soft matters own good flexibility, their electrical conductivities including more behaviours appear not good enough which generally limited their utilizations. As a game-changing alternative, the room temperature liquid metal materials are quickly emerging as a new generation functional material which displayed many unconventional properties superior to traditional materials. Their outstanding versatile feature as “One material, diverse capabilities” is rather unique among existing materials and thus opens many exciting opportunities for scientific, technological and industrial developments.

This handbook presents comprehensive reference information on liquid metal science and technology that are currently available. The major advancements as made before are collected and summarized. Representative liquid metal applications are illustrated. It helps readers obtain a comprehensive understanding of the technical progresses and fundamental discoveries in the frontier, and thus better explore and utilize liquid metal materials to address various challenging needs.

Prof. Jing Liu is a jointly appointed Professor of Tsinghua University (THU) and Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He received his double B.S. degrees in Engineering and Physics in 1992, and Ph.D. in 1996, all from THU and had ever conducted visiting researches at Purdue University and MIT. Dr. Liu works intensively at the interdisciplinary areas among liquid metal, biomedical engineering, and thermal science and pioneered a group of ground taking discoveries which were frequently featured over the world. His endeavors on liquid metal chip cooling, printed electronics, biomaterials, and soft machines initiated many game changing technologies and were widely adopted by the industry. Dr. Liu is a recipient of numerous awards, like the William Begell Medal (issued to only an individual internationally every four years), R&D 100 Awards Finalist, CCTV 2015 Top Ten Figures in Science and Technological Innovation, and over ten times the highest teaching award from CAS and THU, etc.

Wei Rao is a professor at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academy of Sciences. Prof. Rao’s research is highly interdisciplinary in material science of liquid metal, biomedicine and micro/nano technologies. She has published 113 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Science, ACS Nano and Nano Letters, and is a leading author of three books including the latest published monograph “Liquid Metal Nanomaterials”. More than her twenty journal publications were featured as cover story. Prof. Rao holds more than 15 authorized patents and serves as PI for over twenty national grants. Prof. Rao was the recipient of the "foreign talents" program by TIPC and the Beijing Youth Talent Support program and the translation of scientific and technological achievements. At present, Prof. Rao is the director of the United Lab of Liquid Metal Technology.