Reversible Hydrophobic/Hydrophilic Adhesive of PS-b-PNIPAAm Copolymer Brush Nanopillar Arrays for Mimicking the Climbing Aptitude of Geckos

Inspired by the adjustable adhesive ability of the gecko foot pad, alternately attaching to and detaching from where they climb, we used a fabrication process to generate well-defined pillar patterns of polymerized styrene and successively grafted n-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) as thermally responsive terminating of the pillars. By varying the geometry of the patterns including aspect ratio and duty ratio (solid fraction), the respective roles of the geometry the pattern features on the static water contact angle (WCA), hysteresis, adhesive, and friction force at 25 and 50 degrees C have been systemically investigated. The fabrication strategy exploits surface textures of polystyrene (PS) and thermally responsive terminating of PNIPAAm as the artificial foot pad surface, which could generate alternately ca. 93.9 and 8.7 nN of adhesive force at 25 and 50 degrees C, respectively. The results indicate that the adjustable adhesive ability of the copolymer brushes could approach the climbing aptitude of a gecko much more closely. We develop a bioinspired artificial analog by using two common methods including atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and photolithography to adjust adhesion reversibly on a silicon surface. The advantage of the processing strategy described here is the potential to fabricate a device of an artificial foot pad to mimic the climbing aptitude of geckos vividly.