Liquid metal will wet to most metallic surfaces. Specifically though, room-temperature liquid metal can be very reactive with certain metals. Liquid metal can dissolve most metals; however, at moderate temperatures, only some are slightly soluble, such as sodium, potassium, gold, magnesium, lead, nickel and mercury. Gallium is corrosive to all metals except tungsten and tantalum, which have a high resistance to corrosion, more so than niobium, titanium and molybdenum. Similar to indium, gallium and gallium-containing alloys have the ability to wet to many non-metallic surfaces such as glass and quartz. Gently rubbing the alloy into the surface may help induce wetting. However,
Liquid metal embrittlement An incubation period and a slow pre-critical crack propagation stage generally precede final fracture. It is believed that there is specificity in the solid-liquid metals combinations experiencing LME. There should be limited mutual solubilities for the metal couple to cause embrittlement. Excess solubility makes sharp crack propagation difficult, but no solubility condition prevents wetting of the solid surfaces by liquid metal and prevents LME. Presence of an oxide layer on the solid metal surface also prevents good contact between the two metals and stops LME. The chemical compositions of the solid and liquid metals affect the severity of embrittlement. Addition