Fabrication and Adhesive Force Analysis of Biomimetic Gecko Foot-Hair Array

Gecko has elaborate adhesive structure which allows it to move along vertical walls and ceilings quickly. There is strong evidence that the adhesion ability is due to van der Waals forces. Synthetic dry adhesive hairs inspired by gecko foot-hairs have been microfabricated by several groups. To obtain re-attachable dry adhesive hairs with mass production potential, ICP technique is employed to fabricate silicon molds, and flexible hair arrays in large area is fabricated by peel-off method of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Experimental results demonstrate that the adhesive forces are 2.06N/cm² for 2 mum hairs, 1.09N/cm² for 5 mum hairs and 0.68N/cm² for bald polymer