Evidence for capillarity contributions to gecko adhesion from single spatula nanomechanical measurements

Reference

Huber, G., Mantz, H., Spolenak, R., Mecke, K., Jacobs, K., Gorb, S., Arzt, E., Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 102, 16293–16296 (2005).

Keywords

capillarity, adhesion, monolayer, spatula, contact angle

Summary

Figure 1

This paper shows that humidity affects gecko adhesion on the spatular level, i.e., the smallest level of the hierarchial gecko foot structure. This finding disagrees with previous studies which rejected the contribution of capillarity and which suggested that van der Waals forces dominate the high adhesion.

Because of the small size of the spatulae (<math>\approx</math> 200 nm wide and long).