Unconventional liquid metal Faraday waves and its electrical switch effect

Here we introduce a high-surface-tension liquid metal-solution bilayer to the Faraday instability system and investigate its wave evolution under cylindrical confinement. By varying the driving frequency from 20 Hz to 80 Hz, diverse wave patterns with fold symmetry from 2 to 10 are excited. We further show that non-coalescent droplets of the same liquid metal can be sustained on the structured wave patterns. Distant droplets can be confined at the antinodes of the wavy surface and self-assemble the corresponding wave structures. We also demonstrate a simple yet fast method to switch the surface waves between different states by electrically altering the liquid metal surface tension.