Gallium-Infused Liquid-Solid Composites

Materials scientists are looking to nature — at the discs in human spines and the skin of ocean-diving fish — for clues about how to design materials with both flexibility and stiffness. The solution to increasing stiffness (elastic modulus) of a soft, silicon-based polymer was to infuse it with pockets of liquid gallium. The solution contradicts the traditional belief that adding a harder substance increases modulus, and adding a softer one decreases modulus.