Dry adhesives and methods for making dry adhesives

Abstract

Dry adhesives and methods for forming dry adhesives. A method of forming a dry adhesive structure on a backing material, comprises: forming a template backing layer of energy sensitive material on the backing material; forming a template layer of energy sensitive material on the template backing layer; exposing the template layer to a predetermined pattern of energy; removing a portion of the template layer related to the predetermined pattern of energy, and leaving a template structure formed from energy sensitive material and connected to the substrate via the template backing layer.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]The present invention is a Continuation In Part application of U.S. Non-provisional application Ser. No. 12 / 448,242 entitled “DRY ADHESIVES AND METHODS FOR MAKING DRY ADHESIVES” filed on Aug. 27, 2009, which is a national stage entry of Patent Cooperation Treaty international application serial number PCT / US2007 / 025683, entitled “DRY ADHESIVES AND METHODS FOR MAKING DRY ADHESIVES” filed on Dec. 14, 2007, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 874,850, filed on Dec. 14, 2006, all are incorporated herein by reference.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY-SPONSORED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT[0002]This invention was made, in part, with government support under Grant Number CNS-0428738 awarded by the National Science Foundation. The United States government may have certain rights in this invention.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention relates to dry adhesives, and methods for making dry adhesives including, for...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0011]The present invention provides a method for the fabrication of polymer microfiber arrays with precisely controlled geometry and density through a micromolding process which duplicates lithographically formed master template structures with a desired fiber material. This technique enables fabrication of fiber array patches inexpensively and with high yields. This is a significant advantage with compared to other proposed fibrillar adhesive fabrication techniques [A. K. Geim, S. V. Dubonos, I. V. Grigorieva, K. S. Novoselov, A. A. Zhukov, and S. Y. Shapoval. Microfabricated adhesive mimicking gecko foot-hair. Nature Materials, 2:461-463, 1 Jun. 2003.], [M. T. Northen and K. L. Turner. A batch fabricated biomimetic dry adhesive. Nanotechnology, 16:1159-1166, 2005.], [Y. Zhao, T. Tong, L. Delzeit, A. Kashani, M. Meyyappan, and A. Majumdar. Interfacial energy and strength of multiwalled-carbon-nanotube-based dry adhesive. Journal of Vacuum Science 4 Technology B: Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures, 24:331-335, 2006.]. Also, this method allows for design and fabrication of fibers with non-vertical orientation.

[0012]The present invention provides methods for fabrication of vertical and angled micro- and nanofibers with adhesive qualities. Polymer micro- and nanofiber arrays are fabricated through a micro molding process which duplicates lithographically formed master template structures with a desired fiber material. This technique enables fabrication of fiber arrays inexpensively and with high yields, and enables the fabrication of fibers with controlled angles.

Problems solved by technology

But, DRIE can only etch vertical walls even the wafer is tilted.

The microfiber fabrication methods described above are very expensive for producing commercial quantities of adhesive materials.

Moreover, they cannot efficiently and controllably produce angled fibers.

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