Obviously, the investigation of other liquid metal surfaces is mandatory to obtain detailed insight into the physics of surface ordering. In the case of Ga, the formation, growth, thickness, stiffness, homogeneity and temperature dependence of a thin oxide layer has been observed. This thin oxide film completely protects the underlying bulk liquid from further oxidation similar to the oxide passivation observed for solid Al exposed to air. In shows a completely different behavior. Upon further exposure to oxygen, the islands eventually grow into the center of the sample and the reflectivity drastically decreases due to the large roughness of the oxidized surface at this point.
Liquid metals provide an intermediate subphase for monolayers.
Interestingly, the chemisorption of a thiol monolayer on liquid Hg does not suppress the surface induced layering in a significant way even though the the Hg-S bond is strong enough to be expected to effect the surface structure. Our most recent experiments exploring how surface induced layering is affected by alloying two liquid metals. Typically, the surface layering is suppressed or destroyed when the two components differ considerably in size. In addition, new surface phases that depend on the type of bulk interactions between the two components can be studied. We have studied the exemplary Ga-In system and found surface segregation of In, the lower surface tension component.