Science 10 October 2008.docVIP

Science 10 October 2008: Vol. 322 no. 5899 pp. 238-242 DOI: 10.1126/science.1159503 REPORT Carbon Nanotube Arrays with Strong Shear Binding-On and Easy Normal Lifting-Off Liangti Qu1, Liming Dai1,*, Morley Stone2, Zhenhai Xia3, Zhong Lin Wang4,* +Author Affiliations 1 Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469, USA. 2 Air Force Research Laboratory, Human Effectiveness Directorate, AFRL/RH, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH 45433, USA. 3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA. 4 School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. ?* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ldai@ (L.D.); zlwang@ (Z.L.W.) ABSTRACT The ability of gecko lizards to adhere to a vertical solid surface comes from their remarkable feet with aligned microscopic elastic hairs. By using carbon nanotube arrays that are dominated by a straight body segment but with curly entangled top, we have created gecko-foot–mimetic dry adhesives that show macroscopic adhesive forces of ～100 newtons per square centimeter, almost 10 times that of a gecko foot, and a much stronger shear adhesion force than the normal adhesion force, to ensure strong binding along the shear direction and easy lifting in the normal direction. This anisotropic force distribution is due to the shear-induced alignments of the curly segments of the nanotubes. The mimetic adhesives can be alternatively binding-on and lifting-off over various substrates for simulating the walking of a living gecko. The unusual ability of gecko lizards to climb on any vertical surface and hang from a ceiling with one toe has inspired scientific interest for decades. Only in the past few years has progress been made in understanding the mechanism that allows the gecko to defy gravity in climbing vertical surfaces (1, 2). Recent studies revealed the remarkable ge