Break-up phenomena of liquid metal thin film induced by high electric current

Abstract

The room temperature liquid metal related electronics has been found important in a wide variety of emerging areas over the past few years. However, its failure features under high electrical current densities are not clear until now. Here we show that a liquid metal thin film would break-up as the applied current increases to a critical magnitude. The break-up phenomenon is attributed to be caused by the so-called electromigration effect. This problem could be one of the major hurdles that must be tackled with caution in the research and application of future liquid metal film electronics.