Interfacial mechanics and liquid crystal structure of liquid gallium

Abstract

This dissertation aims to shed light on the fundamental aspects of supercooled liquid gallium. First, the mechanical properties of the oxide skin encapsulating the supercooled liquid gallium droplet is investigated. By leveraging the supercooling behavior of gallium and the formation of its oxide skin, we characterized the emergence of wrinkling at the interface and adhesion energy between the liquid gallium and rigid substrate. An interfacial energy of 0.238 ± 0.008 J m-2 was measured between gallium droplet and flat glass. Second, seed induced crystallization of supercooled liquid gallium on the different substrate materials revealed the dependence of the kinetics of crystallization on thermal behavior of the substrate. Such approach further elucidates on the importance of interface temperature during crystallization with a preferred orientation. The third part of the dissertation reports an unprecedented liquid crystal structure in supercooled liquid gallium. By the use of techniques applied in liquid crystal (LC) research, observation of LC texture in supercooled liquid gallium was realized. Reflective polarized optical microscopy (R-POM) on liquid gallium sandwiched between glasses treated with rubbed polymers reveals the onset of an anisotropic reflection of possible dimer molecules or clusters at 120°C that increases on cooling and persists down to room temperature or below. On the other hand, when gallium is sandwiched between substrates that align conventional liquid crystal molecules normal to the surface, the reflection is isotropic. This observation of LC structure of a highly electrically conductive supercooled liquid gallium provides an unexpected new field of materials science and liquid crystal research.