Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 20, 2025
Solvent Bonding for Fabrication of PMMA and COP Microfluidic Devices
Published on: January 17, 2017
Interlocking-interface-enabled thermally deformable liquid metal/polymer membrane with high bonding strength
Tian-Ying Liu1, Fan Jia2, Qian Li3
1Beijing Key Laboratory of Cryo-Biomedical Engineering, CAS Key Laboratory of Cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China; School of Future Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
Hypothesis:
The high surface tension of liquid metal (LM) causes interface incompatibility and poor bonding strength with many substrates. Fine adjustment towards the properties of the surface area is sufficient to introduce strong bonding. Hence, we hypothesize that the interlocking structure using hydrophilic polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a "bridge" should be helpful for tight interfacial bonding of LM with polymeric substrates, thus achieving high-performance LM/polymer membranes, which have wide applications in the field of soft sensors and robotics.
Experiments:
The bulk EGaIn was fabricated into LM nanoparticles (LMNPs@PVA) solution. Then, PVA molecules were "doped" into the surface crosslink of the plasma treated polymer substrate by an interfacial penetrating method. Afterward, the solution was evenly dropped on the surface of the treated substrate to obtain the LMNP/polymer membrane after the water evaporated. Photothermal actuators were fabricated based on the membranes.
Findings:
During the interlocking structure, PVA macromolecules could be doped and trapped onto the top surfaces of various polymer substrates as binding "bridges" between the LMNPs and the matrix materials. The achieved LMNP membrane exhibites satisfactory bonding strength, durability and water-assisted erase-reprint, which can be used as soft photothermal actuators with remote laser control.
