Nanoscale Fractal Branching Patterns

From the creator

Adhesive tapes are indispensable in our everyday lives. However, when they are used repeatedly they become less sticky and lose their effectiveness. In contrast, geckos and other creatures have feet with the ability both to stick to things and to peel off -- and this ability is not affected by the repeatable use. I'm Pola Goldberg and work in the field of interdisciplinary research focused on combining soft (polymers) and hard materials (CNTs, graphene) for creating composite and hybrid structures with advanced properties and applications. Adhesive tapes are indispensable in everyday lives, for instance, for sealing packages or covering wounds. However, they are susceptible to contamination and thus their repeated sticking to surfaces is limited to a few times only. Biological adhesives such as spiders or geckos, on the other hand, are capable of strong adhesion on smooth and rough surfaces and are easily peeled off, exhibiting outstanding wall-climbing abilities. I am exploring bio-inspired fabrication routes of fibrillar (hairy) synthetic adhesives which could not only enable close bio-mimicking of the superior-adhesive gecko properties, but also, offer functional aspects different to nature, such as high electrical and thermal conductivity. The aim of this study is to mimic the multiscale structure and properties of gecko's setae (micron scale) and spatula (nanometer scale) by forming carbon nanotubes arrays on polymeric microstructures. Hierarchical polymeric structure

Published 2012-10-15 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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