Room temperature liquid metal: its melting point, dominating mechanism and applications

The room temperature liquid metal (LM) is recently emerging as a new class of versatile materials with fascinating characteristics mostly originated from its simultaneous metallic and liquid natures. The melting point is a typical parameter to describe the peculiarity of LM, and a pivotal factor to consider concerning its practical applications such as phase change materials (PCMs) and advanced thermal management. Therefore, the theoretical exploration into the melting point of LM is an essential issue, which can be of special value for the design of new LM materials with desired properties. So far, some available strategies such as molecular dynamics (MD) simulation and classical thermodynamic theory have been applied to perform correlative analysis. This paper is primarily dedicated to performing a comprehensive overview regarding typical theoretical strategies on analyzing the melting points. It, then, presents evaluations on several factors like components, pressure, size and supercooling that may be critical for melting processes of liquid metal. After that, it discusses applications associated with the characteristic of low melting points of LM. It is expected that a great many fundamental and practical works are to be conducted in the coming future.