Glued to the spot: Max Planck scientists from Stuttgart have used gallium as an adhesive to grip a glass sphere with a movable punch model. The metal is located at the bottom of the punch model. Once it touches the glass sphere, the researchers heat the gallium and then cool it off again, so that it connects to the glass. This way, they can retract the sphere from the surface. Credit: © MPI for Intelligent Systems
Researchers are suggesting gallium as just such a reversible adhesive. By inducing slight changes in temperature, they can control whether a layer of gallium sticks or not. This is based on the fact that gallium transitions from a solid state to a liquid state at ~30C...
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