Solid-Liquid Composites for Soft Multifunctional Materials

Abstract

Soft materials with a liquid component are an emerging paradigm in materials design. The incorporation of a liquid phase, such as water, liquid metals, or complex fluids, into solid materials imparts unique properties and characteristics that emerge as a result of the dramatically different properties of the liquid and solid. Especially in recent years, this has led to the development and study of a range of novel materials with new functional responses, with applications in topics including soft electronics, soft robotics, 3D printing, wet granular systems and even in cell biology. Here we provide a review of solid-liquid composites, broadly defined as a material system with at least one, phase-separated liquid component, and discuss their morphology and fabrication approaches, their emergent mechanical properties and functional response, and the broad range of their applications.

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Scalable fabrication of gap-plasmon-based dynamic and chromogenic nanostructures by capillary-interaction driven self-assembly of liquid-metal
• Wafer-Scale Electroactive Nanoporous Silicon: Large and Fully Reversible Electrochemo-Mechanical Actuation in Aqueous Electrolytes
• Graphene-Assisted Chemical Stabilization of Liquid Metal Nano Droplets for Liquid Metal Based Energy Storage
• Instability-induced patterning of a jelling jet