Engineers at the University of Illinois injected liquid gallium metal capsules into microchips so circuits can literally bleed and heal themselves in milliseconds when cracked…

A closer look

If you drop your laptop, the ensuing spiderweb of cracked microscopic logic boards is usually a financial death sentence. However, materials scientists have weaponized the concept of a biological scab for consumer electronics. By embedding sub-10-micron microcapsules of liquid gallium-indium alloy directly into the circuit interconnects, any physical stress that causes a microscopic fracture also ruptures the capsules. The liquid metal instantly bleeds into the gap, restoring 99% of electrical conductivity in a fraction of a millisecond before the operating system even realizes it experienced a catastrophic hardware failure.