Physical Intelligence

Wrinkling instability and adhesion of a highly bendable gallium oxide nanofilm encapsulating a liquid-gallium droplet

2018

Article

pi


The wrinkling and interfacial adhesion mechanics of a gallium-oxide nanofilm encapsulating a liquid-gallium droplet are presented. The native oxide nanofilm provides mechanical stability by preventing the flow of the liquid metal. We show how a crumpled oxide skin a few nanometers thick behaves akin to a highly bendable elastic nanofilm under ambient conditions. Upon compression, a wrinkling instability emerges at the contact interface to relieve the applied stress. As the load is further increased, radial wrinkles evolve, and, eventually, the oxide nanofilm ruptures. The observed wrinkling closely resembles the instability experienced by nanofilms under axisymmetric loading, thus providing further insights into the behaviors of elastic nanofilms. Moreover, the mechanical attributes of the oxide skin enable high surface conformation by exhibiting liquid-like behavior. We measured an adhesion energy of 0.238 ± 0.008 J m–2 between a liquid-gallium droplet and smooth flat glass, which is close to the measurements of thin-sheet nanomaterials such as graphene on silicon dioxide.

Author(s): Yunusa, Muhammad and Amador, Guillermo J. and Drotlef, Dirk-M. and Sitti, Metin
Journal: Nano Letters
Volume: 18
Number (issue): 4
Pages: 2498-2504
Year: 2018
Month: March
Day: 6

Department(s): Physical Intelligence
Research Project(s): Adhesion of phase-changing liquid Gallium droplets
Bibtex Type: Article (article)

DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164
Eprint: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164
URL: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164

BibTex

@article{doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164,
  title = {Wrinkling instability and adhesion of a highly bendable gallium oxide nanofilm encapsulating a liquid-gallium droplet},
  author = {Yunusa, Muhammad and Amador, Guillermo J. and Drotlef, Dirk-M. and Sitti, Metin},
  journal = {Nano Letters},
  volume = {18},
  number = {4},
  pages = {2498-2504},
  month = mar,
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164},
  eprint = {  https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164 },
  url = {  https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b00164 },
  month_numeric = {3}
}