Abstract
The complex structures that allow geckos to repeatably adhere to surfaces consist of multilevel branching fibers with specialized tips. We present a novel technique for fabricating similar multilevel structures from polymer materials and demonstrate the fabrication of arrays of two- and three-level structures, wherein each level terminates in flat mushroom-type tips. Adhesion experiments are conducted on two-level fiber arrays on a 12-mm-diameter glass hemisphere, which exhibit both increased adhesion and interface toughness over one-level fiber samples and unstructured control samples. These adhesion enhancements are the result of increased surface conformation as well as increased extension during detachment.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 849-855 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 29 2009 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- adhesion
- bioinspired
- dry adhesive
- gecko
- hierarchy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science