Keeping gallium metal to liquid state under the freezing point by using silica nanoparticles

Gallium metal under the freezing point was observed to maintain its liquid state by dispersing silica nanoparticles of a given particle size and concentration. Though the freezing point of pure gallium is 302.9 K, the liquid gallium maintained its supercooling state at 276-277 K for more than 400 days by dispersing 1.0 wt. % of silica nanoparticles (10 nm in size). Extended x-ray absorption fine structure analysis shows that the supercooled gallium liquid has a β-Ga-like feature, and the nearest neighboring atom distance is 0.1 Å larger than that of pure liquid gallium. This method opens the way to use liquid gallium as a promising fluid carrier in energy conversion devices.