Acoustic wave-driven oxide dependant dynamic behavior of liquid metal droplet for inkjet applications

Abstract

In this paper, we report bouncing and separating dynamic behaviors of a liquid metal droplet with/without the oxide layer in response to the applied acoustic wave. The oxidized liquid metal droplet is readily bounced off from the surface when it is excited by acoustic wave, while the HCl treated liquid metal droplet is fragmented into several small droplets. The bouncing height of the oxidized liquid metal is proportional to the applied acoustic wave amplitude. The number of the fragmented liquid metal droplets for the HCl-treated liquid metal according to time and acoustic wave amplitude was investigated. We also demonstrated the acoustic wave-based inkjet application to generate liquid metal droplets based on the pinch-off and the Rayleigh instability by changing amplitude of the acoustic wave. The probability for the generation of various droplet sizes with different acoustic wave amplitude was also studied.

Keywords

• liquid metal
• non-wetting
• acoustic wave
• HCl solution treatment
• inkjet application