Research Article
An Electrically Actuated Liquid-Metal Gain-Reconfigurable Antenna
Figure 6
Liquid-metal actuation process: (a) empty fixture; (b) Galinstan slug resting in the 0 mm offset state (center) submerged in NaOH (cyan); (c) the NaOH at the left of the channel is grounded (blue negative sign) and a 60 Hz, 1 Vpp, 75%-duty-cycle signal (red plus sign) is applied to the NaOH at the right end of the channel, inducing CEW and actuating the Galinstan slug rightward; (d) the Galinstan slug resting in an -mm-offset state (7 mm offset here) does not need an applied potential to remain in position. The entire process can be reversed by reversing the locations in which the AC signal and ground are applied.
| (a) Empty fixture |
| (b) 0 mm offset state |
| (c) CEW actuation |
| (d) 7 mm offset state |