title: Diverse transformations of liquid metals between different morphologies.
abstract: Transformation from a film into a sphere, rapid merging of separate objects, controlled self-rotation, and planar locomotion are the very unusual phenomena observed in liquid metals under application of an electric field to a liquid metal immersed in or sprayed with water. A mechanism for these effects is suggested and potential applications - for example the recovery of liquid metal previously injected into the body for therapeutic purposes - are outlined.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D004560:Electricity; D008670:Metals / Q000737:chemistry*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009038:Motion; D012399:Rotation; D013696:Temperature; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D008670:Metals; D014867:Water
keywords: liquid metals; locomotion; morphological transformations; self-rotation; water vortexes