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 depend upon the chemical compositions of the metal couple. External parameters like temperature, strain rate, stress and time of exposure to the liquid metal prior to testing affect LME. Temperature produces a ductility trough and a ductile to brittle transition behaviour in the solid metal. The temperature range of the trough as well as the transition temperature are altered by the composition of the liquid and solid metals, the structure of the solid metal and other experimental parameters. The lower limit of the ductility trough generally coincides with the melting point of the liquid metal. The upper limit is strain