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Gecko Adhesion
Kimberly L. Turner Mechanical Engineering Department UC Santa Barbara Geckos, as well as many insects, have evolved a robust reversible adhesion mechanism, enabling them to traverse rough, smooth, vertical or inverted surfaces. This feat is enabled by a hierarchical structure of 20 μm diameter setae splitting into 200 nm wide spatulae. The setae are able to conform to the microscale roughness of a surface, enabling the spatulae to make intimate surface contact—enhancing short-range van der Waals interactions. In addition, the hierarchical structure provides a fast and effective release mechanism. This talk will focus on the fabrication and demonstration of hierarchical synthetic adhesives based on maximizing the van der Waals interaction. In addition, a new class of reversible bio-inspired synthetic adhesives will be presented. This biomimetic system is composed of 10 μm wide, 130 μm long flexible nickel paddles coated by 200 nm diameter aligned vertical polymeric nanorods (analogous to the gecko’s setae and spatulae, respectively). Such controllable adhesion may impact technologies ranging from ubiquitous latching systems to high-tech applications such as microrobotics.
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