LiqMat: Liquidity-Enabled Matters for Adaptive Electronics

Life chooses liquids, whereas modern electronics has long relied on solids. This fundamental distinction has shaped 2 remarkably successful yet largely independent information systems: biological systems that achieve adaptation through dynamic liquid environments and electronic systems that rely on static solid-state architectures. Although flexible electronics have largely improved mechanical compliance, their functionality remains predominantly encoded in fixed conductive pathways and predefined interfaces, limiting their ability to adapt. Here, we introduce LiqMat (liquidity-enabled matters) as a materials paradigm for adaptive electronics. Rather than defining a specific material class, LiqMat describes functional material systems whose properties emerge from liquidity-enabled dynamics rather than relying solely on static structures. We propose that dynamic interfaces, adaptive transport, and structural evolution constitute 3 core characteristics of LiqMat. These characteristics are shared by diverse liquid-enabled material systems, including aqueous systems and hydrogels, ionic liquids and ionogels, and electrofluids, as well as liquid metals and their composites, despite their distinct chemistries and transport mechanisms. Of these, liquid metals provide a particularly illustrative example of LiqMat by combining high electronic conductivity with fluidic adaptability. Looking forward, LiqMat provides a conceptual framework for shifting electronics from mechanically flexible yet functionally static systems toward adaptive electronics inspired by the dynamic organization of living systems.