  Over the ages, efforts have been made to use composite design to reinforce
metals and alloys in order to increase their strength and modulus. On the other
hand, nature herself improves the strength, ductility, stiffness and toughness
of materials by strengthening them with liquids having zero strength/modulus.
Here, emulating nature, efforts have been made to develop a new class of tin
based alloy/composite with liquid metal reinforcement (LMM). Based on
thermodynamic calculations, a composition has been designed such that on
melting and casting it forms a solid metal (tin solid solution) and the
eutectic mixture remains in liquid form at room temperature. The composite
structure named as LMM shows multifold improvement in hardness, strength,
ductility, toughness and wear resistance as compared to conventional solder
alloys. A Finite Element Method (FEM) based simulation shows strain
distribution in the composite which results in the unique behavior. The LMM
also shows a negative coefficient of thermal expansion which is further
verified using in-situ microscopy and thermodynamic calculations.

Applied Physics;Materials Science