Gecko-Like Dry Adhesive Surfaces and Their Applications: A Review

Gecko has the ability to climb flexibly on various natural surfaces because of its fine layered adhesion system of foot, which has motivated researchers to carry out a lot of researches on it. Significant progresses have been made in the gecko-like dry adhesive surfaces in the past 2 decades, such as the mechanical measurement of adhesive characteristics, the theoretical modeling of adhesive mechanism and the production of synthetic dry adhesive surfaces. Relevant application researches have been carried out as well. This paper focuses on the investigations made in recent years on the gecko-like dry adhesive surfaces, so as to lay the foundation for further research breakthroughs. First, the adhesion system of gecko’s foot and its excellent adhesive characteristics are reviewed, and the adhesive models describing the gecko adhesion are summarily reviewed according to the different contact modes. Then, some gecko-like dry adhesive surfaces with outstanding adhesive characteristics are presented. Next, some application researches based on the gecko-like dry adhesive surfaces are introduced. Finally, the full text is summarized and the problems to be solved on the gecko-like dry adhesive surfaces are prospected.