Liquid metals nanotransformer for healthcare biosensors

Abstract

Featuring low cost, low melting points, excellent biocompatibility, outstanding electrical conductivity, and mechanical properties, gallium-based liquid metals (LMs) have become a promising class of materials to fabricate flexible healthcare sensors. However, the extremely high surface tension hinders their manipulation and cooperation with substrates. To address this problem, the inspiration of nanomaterials has been adopted to mold LMs into LM nanoparticles (LMNPs) with expanded advantages. The transformability of LMNPs endows them with functionalities for sensors in multiple dimensions, such as intelligent response to specific molecules or strains, various morphologies, integration into high-resolution circuits, and conductive elastomers. This review aims to summarize the superior properties of LMs, transformability of LMNPs, and correlated advantages for sensor performance. Multidimensional functional sensing forms consisting of LMNPs and corresponding applications as healthcare sensors will be presented. In the end, the existing challenges and prospects in the processing and application of LMNPs will also be discussed.