Gallium’s Hidden Order: New Insights Into a Metal That Melts in Your Hand
Researchers overturn decades of assumptions about liquid gallium, showing covalent bonds vanish at its melting point and reappear as temperature rises, helping explain non-linear changes in conductivity; a follow-up study reveals the surface is not completely disordered but forms subtle, three-layer order that persists across several angstroms and is strengthened by an oxide layer, though a single bismuth impurity can disrupt it, with significant implications for liquid-metal technologies.