Suspension printing of liquid metal in yield-stress fluid for resilient 3D constructs with electromagnetic functions

Abstract Liquid metal is an ideal conductive material for soft electronics because of its high conductivity and fluidity at room temperature. However, the large surface tension mass density liquid make forming three-dimensional (3D) dangling structures a challenging task. Reported here suspension printing strategy direct deposition galinstan-based into 3D with shape fidelity spatial resolution (~150 μm). Acrylamide/nanoclay served as yield-stress fluid support bath, selected hydrogen peroxide to immediately oxidize gallium skin strengthen extruded metal, thus continuous filaments were deposited successfully. The subsequent photo-curing acrylamide/nanoclay works resilient outer packaging, giving rise ~500% tensile deformation metal-hydrogel composite. This should broaden opportunity using functional constructs yet electromagnetic devices.