Jeong Jinwon, Chung Sangkug, Lee Jeong-Bong, Kim Daeyoung
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Myongji University, Yongin 449-728, Korea.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX 75080, USA.
Micromachines (Basel). 2021 Sep 20;12(9):1131. doi: 10.3390/mi12091131.
A gallium-based liquid metal got high attention recently, due to the excellent material properties that are useful in various research areas. We report here on electric field-induced liquid metal droplet generation and falling direction manipulation. The well-analyzed electro-hydrodynamic method is a selectable way to control the liquid metal, as the liquid metal is conductive. The electric field-induced liquid metal manipulation can be affected by the flow rate (0.050.2 mL/min), voltage (07 kV), and distance (15 and 30 mm) between electrodes, which changes the volume of the electric field-induced generated liquid metal droplet and the number of the generated droplets. When the electric field intensity increases or the flow rate increases, the generated droplet volume decreases, and the number of droplets increases. With the highest voltage of 7 kV with 15 mm between electrodes at the 0.2 mL/min flow rate, the lowest volume and the largest number of the generated droplets for 10 s were ~10 nL and 541, respectively. Additionally, we controlled the direction of the generated droplet by changing the electric field. The direction of the liquid metal droplet was controlled with the maximum angle of ~12°. Moreover, we exhibited a short circuit demonstration by controlling the volume or falling direction of the generated liquid metal droplet with an applied electric field.
一种镓基液态金属近来备受关注，这归因于其优异的材料特性，这些特性在各个研究领域都很有用。我们在此报告电场诱导液态金属微滴的产生及下落方向操控。由于液态金属具有导电性，经过充分分析的电流体动力学方法是控制液态金属的一种可选方式。电场诱导液态金属操控会受到流速（0.050.2毫升/分钟）、电压（07千伏）以及电极间距离（15毫米和30毫米）的影响，这些因素会改变电场诱导产生的液态金属微滴的体积以及产生的微滴数量。当电场强度增加或流速增加时，产生的微滴体积减小，微滴数量增加。在流速为0.2毫升/分钟、电极间距离为15毫米且最高电压为7千伏的情况下，10秒内产生的微滴的最小体积和最大数量分别约为10纳升和541个。此外，我们通过改变电场来控制产生的微滴的方向。液态金属微滴的方向被控制在最大约12°的角度。而且，我们通过利用施加的电场控制产生的液态金属微滴的体积或下落方向展示了短路演示。
