The octopus is capable of adhering to slippery, rough, and irregular surfaces in the marine intertidal zone because of its periodic infundibulum-shaped suckers on the arms. Here, we present a scalable self-assembly technology for fabricating adhesion materials that mimic octopus sucker functionality. By utilizing spin-coated two-dimensional colloidal crystals as templates, non-close-packed nanosucker arrays are patterned on silicone substrates. The resulting nanosuckers can be deformed to exhibit great adhesive capacities on both microrough and flat surfaces in dry and wet environments. This indicates a probable biomimetic solution to the challenge of wound care.
Keywords: adhesion; nanosucker arrays; octopus; self-assembly; spin-coating.