Journal of Bionic Engineering 13 (2016) 132–142

Fabrication and Characterization of Gecko-inspired Dry Adhesion,

Superhydrophobicity and Wet Self-cleaning Surfaces

Yongchao Zhang1, Shuxin Qu1, Xiang Cheng1, Xueling Gao1, Xia Guo2
1. Key Lab of Advanced Technologies of Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest
Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
2. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China

Abstract
In this study, gecko-inspired polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfiber surfaces were fabricated by combining Inductively
Coupled Plasma (ICP) and micro-mold casting. The effect of roughness and surface energy of counterface on the adhesion of
gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces and its superhydrophobicity and wet self-cleaning were studied. The adhesion of
gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces depended on the roughness of the counterfaces due to the influences of contact area and
interlocking mechanism. SEM images of interfaces between counterfaces with different roughness and gecko-inspired mi-
crofiber surfaces revealed the matched and dis-matched contact directly. The gecko-inspired microfiber surface got the larger
adhesive force from the higher surface energy counterface, which is consisted with Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory. The
smaller dimension and lower duty ratio of microfibers on PDMS resulted in the increasing of Water Contact Angle (WCA) and
the decreasing of Sliding Angle (SA) compared to those of smooth PDMS. Particularly, sample P-8-28-20 had the biggest WCA
(155˚) and SA (7˚), which displayed the superhydrophobicity and the best wet self-cleaning efficiency in all samples. The
present studies showed that the roughness and surface energy of counterface both affected the adhesion of gecko-inspired
microfiber surfaces. The smaller dimension and lower duty ratio of microfibers on PDMS endowed it with the superhydro-
phobicity and the wet self-cleaning abilities.
Keywords: gecko-inspired microfiber polydimethylsiloxane surfaces, surface properties, counterface, superhydrophobicity,
wet self-cleaning
Copyright © 2016, Jilin University. Published by Elsevier Limited and Science Press. All rights reserved.
doi: 10.1016/S1672-6529(14)60167-0

contact area of gecko foot pads to adapt to a variety of

1 Introduction
The amazing adhesive aptitude of gecko, to stick
readily and rapidly to almost any surfaces and to keep
their feet clean while walking with sticky toes[1–8], has
attracted enormous interest owing to a variety of poten-
tial applications in smart adhesion[6], self-cleaning[2] and
superhydrophobicity biomimetic surfaces[7]. This superb
ability is reported to be resulted from the hierarchical
micro- and nanoscale fiber structures on their foot
pads[1–5]. The foot pad of gecko contains arrays of
β-keratin lamellae and each lamella consists of thou-
sands of micrometer-sized stalks known as setae, which
are terminated by millions of spatulas in nanoscale[1–5].
Huber et al.[3] and Autumn et al.[4,8] demonstrated that
these millions of spatulas would form larger “real”
slightly rough surfaces so that the gecko foot pads can
adhere to almost any surfaces via weak but universal van
der Waals forces.
Over the last decade, a number of studies have been
devoted to fabricating micro- and nanoscale fiber struc-
tures to develop gecko-inspired adhesive sur-
faces[1,6,7,9,10]. The early studies mostly focused on re-
ducing the dimensions, improving the aspect ratios and
densities of fibers, and regulating the shape of fiber tips.
The dimensions of fibers mostly are ranged in micro-
scale and even to nanoscale, which are mainly fabricated
by polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and PDMS compound
material[11], polyurethane[9] or carbon-tube[10] etc.. Stiff
fibers with higher aspect ratio are produced, which show
extremely excellent friction forces. The relatively soft

Corresponding author: Shuxin Qu

E-mail: qushuxin@swjtu.edu.cn
 Qu et al.: Fabrication and Characterization of Gecko-inspired Dry Adhesion,
Superhydrophobicity and Wet Self-cleaning Surfaces
elastomer fibers with various shape tips[6,7,9–14] and sur-
face energy[15] are designed and manufactured, e.g.
mushroom, conical, wedge and flared shaped, or
mushroom-like hierarchical structures , which typically
exhibit a high normal adhesion strength. Recently, ani-
sotropic or direction-sensitive behaviors have been de-
veloped by synthetic angled fibers with anisotropic shear
forces[16]. Although the adhesive performance is obvi-
ously improved by means of strategies mentioned above,
the synthetic gecko-inspired adhesive surfaces still have
difficulty in matching various counterfaces when ad-
hered due to lack of delicate structure and finer dimen-
sion, undesirable mechanical properties of PDMS and
mismatch of the surface texture of counterface. However,
the previous studies[17–19] on roughness of counterface
only provided the hypothesis but are lacking of direct
experimental evidence. As far as we know, surface free
energy has little impact on the adhesive performance of
gecko[8,15], which is conflicting with Johnson- Kend-
all-Roberts (JKR) theory. Furthermore, the effect of
surface free energy of counterface on adhesive force is
not clear. The substantial challenge for gecko-inspired
adhesive surfaces is to improve their adhesive per-
formance on various surfaces. Therefore, it is necessary
to investigate the effect of surface properties of coun-
terface, e.g. roughness and surface energy, on the adhe-
sion of synthetic gecko-inspired adhesive surface.
Moreover, the mechanical and chemical properties of
PDMS were optimized by adjusting the ratio of starting
agents to improve the adhesive force of gecko-inspired
adhesive surfaces.
In addition, Autumn et al.[2,4] found that gecko se-
tae are superhydrophobic and possess the self-cleaning
ability whatever they pass through desert or hylaea.
Gecko-inspired adhesive surfaces are also demonstrated
to be able to improve the hydrophobic properties due to
micro- and nanofibers according to Wenzel-Cassie
model[20], which might display the self-cleaning ability.
But the study about the effect of microfiber dimension
on hydrophobic property and self-cleaning is still lack-
ing and indefinite.
In this study, a flexible polymer, polydimethylsi-
loxane (PDMS), was used to prepare gecko-inspired
adhesive surfaces. Four kinds of dimensions of mi-
crofibers were designed and fabricated by the way of
micro-mold casting. The effect of roughness and surface
free energy of the counterface on adhesion of gecko-
133
inspired adhesive surfaces was investigated. Further-
more, the hydrophobic and self-cleaning abilities of
gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces were qualitatively
studied.
2 Materials and methods
2.1 Material preparation
SYLGARE 184 PDMS of Dow Corning (Dow
Corning, USA) was used to construct the surface with
microfiber structures, which was composed of the
SYLGARE 184-A base agent and the SYLGARE 184-B
curing agent. Six different mixing ratios of SYLGARE
184-B curing agent to SYLGARE 184-A base agent by
weight were used, ranged from 1:5 (a), 1:7.5 (b), 1:10 (c),
1:12.5 (d), 1:15 (e) to 1:20 (f). After mixed homoge-
nously, mixed PDMS solutions were filled in the model
and placed at 60 ˚C for 24 h to solidify. Then the tensile
strength of all PDMS samples were measured by a uni-
versal material testing machine (5567, Instron, USA) at
a speed of 50 mm·min−1. The dimension of dog-bone
shape sample was 75 mm × 12 mm × 2 mm with the
gauge length of 25 mm. All the tests were conducted
according to the Standard Test Method for Tensile
Properties of Plastics (ASTM D638-10). The elastic
modulus was calculated based on the slope of strain-
stress curve. There were six samples for each tensile
strength test. A contact angle goniometer (DSA100,
Kruss, Germany) was employed to measure contact
angles of PDMS samples by two kinds of liquids, water
and methylene iodide. All the samples were ultrasoni-
cally cleaned in ethanol and then in deionized water and
finally dried prior to the tests. The contact angles were
determined within 30 s after the droplet contacting the
surface of sample. The test was repeated ten times for
each sample at different sites on the surface. The surface
free energies of all samples were calculated by the
Owens method on the basis of contact angles[21]. The
crosslinking densities of PDMS samples were investi-
gated by swelling equilibrium test[22]. Samples with
25 mm × 15 mm × 2 mm were immersed in toluene
(Chengdu Kelong Chemical Co., Ltd., China) until a
thermodynamic equilibrium was got. Then, the
crosslinking density values (N0) was calculated accord-
ing to Eq. (1)[23] basis of the data of polymer-solvent
interaction parameters (χ=0.465), molar volume of the
solvent (V0), volume fraction of polymer in the swollen
mass (Vr) and density of polymer (ρ).
 134 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2016) Vol.13 No.1

N0 = [ln(1−Vr)+Vr+χVr2]/ρV0[(Vr)1/3−Vr/2]. (1) 2.3 Fabrication of gecko-inspired microfiber sur-

faces
2.2 Design of gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces The silicon micro-mould was fabricated using ICP
Hexagonally arranged circular microfiber arrays technology[24,25] (as shown in Fig. 2a). Fig. 2b shows the
(Fig. 1a) were designed to increase the number of mi- schematic to fabricate a gecko-inspired microfiber sur-
crofibers per unit area, which could increase the number face. Firstly, SYLGARE 184 PDMS was mixed in a ratio
of microfibers 3.1% per unit area compared to that of of 7.5:1 (184-A base agent: 184-B curing agent) ho-
square arranged. Different dimensions and some pa- mogenously. After removal of air bubbles, the viscous
rameters of four types of microfibers were shown in liquid was poured into the silicon micro-mold and
Table 1. All samples were denoted as P-D-H-C, which cross-linked at 60 ˚C for 24 h. The final gecko-inspired
indicated the composition PDMS (P), diameter (D), microfiber surface was peeled off from the silicon mi-
height (H) and the distance center to center (C) of mi- cro-mould.
crofibers, respectively. Aspect ratio is the ratio of height
and diameter. The duty ratio (fs) was defined as the 2.4 Characterization of gecko-inspired microfiber
fraction of the project area of all microfibers on the total surfaces
gecko-inspired microfiber surface. 2.4.1 Surface morphology characterization
The morphologies of gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces were characterized by Scanning Electron Mi-
D
(a) (b)
C croscopy (SEM, Phenom G2 pro, Netherlands).
H
2.4.2 Adhesion force measurements
Adhesion measurements were performed on a
home-built adhesion tester apparatus, which consists of
Hexagonal arranged array 3D model
a laser interferometer and a hexapod nano-positioning
Fig. 1 Schematics of (a) hexagonally arranged array and (b) 3 stage. A thin cantilever was used as the counterface, on
dimensional model of microfiber array. which various materials with the different roughness, or
surface energies at dimensions of 10 mm × 10 mm were
Table 1 The design parameters of gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces glued, to study the effect of roughness and surface en-
D C H Aspect Microfiber
ergy of counterface on adhesion. The gecko-inspired
Sample f s(%)
(μm) (μm) (μm) ratio density(cm2) microfiber surface was placed on the positioning stage
5
P-8-28-20 8 28 20 2.5 2.95×10 7.40 and moved up to contact to the fixed counterface at the
5
P-10-30-20 10 30 20 2.0 2.57×10 10.08
speed of 0.5 μm·s−1. The preload was kept for 10 seconds
P-10-20-20 10 20 20 2.0 5.77×105 22.67
to let counterface and gecko-inspired microfiber surface
5
P-20-40-20 20 40 20 1.0 1.44×10 22.67
fully contact. Then gecko-inspired microfiber surface

(b)

Mass ratio 1:7.5

B A
Mixing Curing Peeling off
Cast PDMS 60 ℃，24 h

Fig. 2 Illustrations for (a) fabrication process of silicon micro-mould by inductively coupled plasma procedure and (b) fabrication process
of gecko-inspired polydimethylsiloxane microfiber surface by micro-mould casting. A and B represented 184-A base agent and 184-B
curing agent, respectively.
 Qu et al.: Fabrication and Characterization of Gecko-inspired Dry Adhesion,
Superhydrophobicity and Wet Self-cleaning Surfaces
was retracted at the speed of 0.5 μm·s−1 until the final
detachment occurred. The load-displacement curves
were recorded by the apparatus. Deflection of the can-
tilever was monitored via a laser interferometer. The
force (F) to separate gecko-inspired microfiber surface
and counterface is obtained from Eq. (2), which is the
adhesive force
F=k×Def, (2)
where Def is the cantilever deflection; k=1800 N·m−1,
which is the stiffness of the cantilever.
The adhesive forces of gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces with different microfiber dimensions were
tested on a flat Si wafer under various preloads. Sand-
paper surfaces with five different roughness, noted as R1,
R2, R3, R4 and R5, were tested by 3D nanomap pro-
filometery (Nano Map-D, USA) and used as counter-
faces to measure the adhesive force of sample P-8-28-20
under a 500 mN preload. Smooth stainless steel and
polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) surfaces were used as
the counterfaces with the different surfaces energies to
test the adhesive force against sample P-8-28-20 under a
500 mN preload.
2.4.3 Hydrophobic property measurements
The hydrophobic of gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces was characterized by Water Contact Angle
(WCA) and Sliding Angle (SA). The WCAs were
measured with a contact angle goniometer (DSA100,
Kruss GmbH, Germany) by sessile drop method with
5 μL of water droplet. The sample was slowly tilted and
the image was taken when the water droplet began to
roll[26]. The tilted angle caused the water droplet to roll
was SA. All tests were repeated six times for each sam-
ple at different sites on the surface.
2.4.4 Characterization of wet self-cleaning ability
The gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces were con-
taminated with 0.1 g silica particles (Chengdu Kelong
Chemical Co., Ltd., China) with average particle size of
75 μm, which were evenly dispersed onto the smooth
and gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces by gravity, re-
spectively. Then, 10 μL water droplets were placed on
contaminated surfaces and contaminated surfaces were
tilted to 45˚ to cause the water droplets to slide across the
surfaces for washing. Then the surfaces were observed
135
using an optical microscope (Leica, DRMX, Germany)
to count the number of particles on per unit area before
and after water cleaning. The wet self- cleaning efficient,
S (%), was calculated based on the following equation
S (%)=(1−N/N0) × 100, (3)
where N and N0 are the numbers of particles after and
before washing[27].
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Mechanical properties of the PDMS polymer
Fig. 3a shows the elastic modulus and tensile
strength of PDMS with various mixing ratios of curing
agent to base agent. Both of the elastic modulus and
tensile strength increased with the base agent and both of
them got the maximum values at the mixing ratio of
1:7.5. Then, there was a transitional mixing ratio at 1:10,
after which both of the elastic modulus and tensile
strength decreased with the increase in base agent. This
was speculated that the excess curing agent or base agent
both would reduce the crosslinking density for PDMS
and resulted in the declined mechanical properties[28].
The effect of the mixing ratio on the surface energy of
PDMS is shown in Fig. 3b. The contact angles of PDMS
for water and methyliodide were both relatively stable.
Correspondingly, the surface energy had slight fluctua-
tion with the increase in base agent. It revealed that the
mixing ratio of the curing agent to base agent had less
effect on surface free energy of PDMS. Fig. 3c shows the
crosslinking densities of PDMS with different mixing
ratios. In Fig. 3c, PDMS with the ratio of 1:7.5 had the
maximum crosslinking density. When the curing agent
was excess, e.g. mixing ratio 1:5, the excess curing agent
would block the movement of PDMS segments, which
resulted in the formation of smaller PDMS molecule at
the adjacent crosslinking points, smaller crosslinking
density and lower mechanical strength (as shown in
Fig. 3a). When the base agent was excess, e.g. 1:10 and
1:12.5, etc., the crosslinking was not sufficient, which
would also result in the reduction of crosslinking density
and mechanical strength. Based on the present data, the
optimization mixing ratio of curing agent to base agent
was 1:7.5 to fabricate the gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces due to its higher mechanical strength and higher
crosslinking density.
 136 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2016) Vol.13 No.1

(a) (b)

25 µm 25 µm
Mechanical strength (MPa)

10 µm 10 µm

(c) (d)

25 µm 25 µm

(b) 120 30

25
100 10 µm 10 µm
20

80 Fig. 4 SEM images of gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces with

15
different dimensional parameters. (a) Sample P-8-28-20;
(b) sample P-10-30-20; (c) sample P-10-20-20; (d) sample
Methylene iodide 10 P-20-40-20. The insets refer to the top view SEM images of
60 Water
Surface energy gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces.
5
1:5 1:7.5 1:10 1:12.5 1:15 1:20
Mass ratio of curing agent to base agent
microfibers up-right and peeled off.

3.3 Adhesive forces of gecko-inspired microfiber

surfaces
Crosslinking density (10–4 mol·cm−3)

The adhesive force of gecko-inspired microfiber

surface with different microfiber dimensions were tested
on a flat Si wafer. Fig. 5a shows the adhesive forces
plotted versus the applied preload. The adhesive force of
these gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces increased with
the preload while the flat PDMS surface did not show
any obvious adhesive force during the whole test. In
particular, the adhesive force of sample P-8-28-20 in-
creased considerably with the preload. In general, the
Fig. 3 (a) The elasticity modulus and tensile strength; (b) the surface with a greater microfiber density would produce
contact angles and surface energy; (c) the crosslinking density a larger adhesion. Autumn et al.[2,4] found that gecko
curve of polydimethylsiloxane samples with different mass ratio
of curing agent to base agent. could obtained greater adhesive forces simply by sub-
dividing setae to increase foot surface microfiber density.
3.2 Gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces Therefore, the gecko-inspired microfiber surface with
Fig. 4 shows typical SEM images of the gecko- larger microfiber density could get stronger van der
inspired microfiber surfaces with different hexagonal Waals force. Meanwhile, sample P-8-28-20 both had the
arrays fabricated through micro-mold casting method. smallest diameter and the highest Aspect Ratio (AR) in
There were no lateral tangle collapses among the fibers. all samples (Table 1). The microfibers with small di-
As shown in Fig. 4, the dimensions of the gecko-inspired ameter and high AR were more flexible and deformable,
microfiber surface were roughly the same as those of the which would result in the sufficient contact of microfi-
original micro-molds. The stiffness of the PDMS with bers with various surfaces[17,29,30]. It would be useful to
the mixing ratio of 7.5:1 was enough to keep the increase the effective contact area of gecko-inspired
 Qu et al.: Fabrication and Characterization of Gecko-inspired Dry Adhesion,
Superhydrophobicity and Wet Self-cleaning Surfaces 137
microfiber surfaces and improve adhesive force. As a 150 P-8-28-20
result, sample P-8-28-20 showed the more desirable P-10-20-20
adhesive force at the same preload compared with other 120 P-10-30-20
P-20-40-20
gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces did.

Adhesive force (mN)

Control
Fig. 6 shows the results of adhesion measurements 90

of sample P-8-28-20 on sandpaper surfaces with five

60
kinds of roughness under a 500 mN preload. Five dif-
ferent roughness and the distances between peak and 30
peak were shown in Table 2. The adhesive forces in-
creased firstly and then decreased with the increase in 0
0 50 100 150 200 250
roughness of counterface. The maximum adhesive force Preload (mN)

was 208 mN when roughness Ra was 2.64 ± 0.29 μm. Fig. 5 Adhesive force values for gecko-inspired microfiber sur-
Then the adhesive forces decreased with the increase in faces on flat silicon counterface as a function of preload.
roughness of counterface. The typical morphologies of
the contact interface between gecko-inspired microfiber 200
surfaces and counterfaces with different roughness were
shown in Fig. 7. The minimum contact area appeared 160
when the gecko-inspired microfiber contact with the
Adhesive force (mN)

120
smooth surface shown in Fig. 7a. On the contrary, the
maximum contact area occurred when the optimal match
80
between gecko-inspired microfiber and counterface with
appropriate distance among peaks shown in Fig. 7b. In 40
this case, a tight interlocking mechanism formed be-
tween the gecko-inspired microfiber and counterface. 0
Control R1 R2 R3 R4 R5
The limited contact area occurred when the lesser match Counterface

between gecko-inspired microfiber and distance among Fig. 6 Adhesive force values for sample P-8-28-20 on five dif-
peaks of counterface shown in Fig. 7c. From Table 2 and ferent roughness counterfaces under a 500 mN preload.

Fig. 7 SEM images of the contact interface between gecko-inspired microfiber surface and counterfaces with different roughness. (a)
Gecko-inspired microfibers on the smooth countersurface; (b) gecko-inspired microfibers on counterface R2, the roughness and distance
of peak to peak of counterface was well matched with the gecko-inspired microfiber surface, which could lead to larger contact area and
interlocking mechanism; (c) gecko-inspired microfibers on counterface R4, the roughness and distance of peak to peak of counterface was
dis-matched with the gecko-inspired microfiber surface, the contact of microfibers and counterface was not efficient. The insets refer to the
typical contact and interlocking mechanism models between gecko-inspired microfiber surface and counterface.

Table 2 Roughness parameters of five kinds of different sandpapers as counterfaces

Counterface Surface roughness Ra (μm) Distance of peak to peak (µm)
R1 0.50 ± 0.02 3.34 ± 0.53
R2 2.64 ± 0.29 23.39 ± 5.62
R3 7.49 ± 0.40 63.69 ± 7.90
R4 13.22 ± 0.48 70.83 ± 8.20
R5 15.08 ± 2.93 75.01 ± 14.98
Control 0 0
 138 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2016) Vol.13 No.1
Fig. 7b, it could be found that the distances among peaks
of counterface R2 were very close to the diameter of the
gecko-inspired microfiber surface of sample P-8-28-20.
The gecko-inspired microfibers were able to penetrate
into the grooves among peaks and matched well when
the preload increasing as shown in Fig. 7b, which would
result in the increase in contact area and interlocking
mechanism as mentioned in previous studies[18,19]. As a
result, the adhesive force of the gecko-inspired mi-
crofibers increased. However, the adhesive force de-
clined further with the increase in roughness due to the
larger roughness and peak to peak distance of counter-
faces, which resulted in the less match between gecko-
inspired microfibers and counterface.
Fig. 8 shows the adhesive forces for sample
P-8-28-20 on different surface energy counterfaces with
increased preload. Smooth stainless steel and PTFE
surfaces, with water contact angles of 76.8˚ (hydrophilic,
higher surface energy) and 117.0˚ (hydrophobic, lower
surface energy) respectively, were used as the different
surface energy counterfaces, respectively. The adhesive
forces of sample P-8-28-20 against stainless and PTFE
both improved with the increase in preload. In all cases,
the stainless steel surface showed the higher adhesion
than PTFE surface. The influence of surface energy on
the adhesive force between counterface and gecko-
inspired microfibers could be discussed qualitatively by
Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory[31]. The adhesive
force between counterface and gecko-inspired microfi-
bers can be calculated as[31]
Fad=−1.5πωR, (4)
200
Stainless steel
PTFE
150 Stainless steel
76.8˚
PTFE
100
117.0˚
50
0
100 200 300 400 500
Preload (mN)
Fig. 8 Adhesive force on counterfaces with different surface
energy surfaces for sample P-8-28-20. The water contact angles of
stainless steel and PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) were 76.8˚
(hydrophilic, higher surface energy) and 117.0˚ (hydrophobic,
lower surface energy), respectively.
where Fad is the adhesive force of single microfiber with
the counterface, R is the equivalent radius of the contact
surfaces and ω is the energy per unit contact area, which
is calculated as[31]
ω=2(γ1γ2)1/2, (5)
where γ1 and γ2 are the surface energies of counterface
and gecko-inspired microfiber surface, respectively.
According the Eq. (4), the increase in the surface
energies, either that of the counterface or that of
gecko-inspired microfiber surface, both are advantage
for improving the adhesive energy ω and leading to the
stronger adhesive force. It also could explain why the
adhesive forces on stainless steel surface were higher
than those of PTFE surface.
3.4 Superhydrophobicity of gecko-inspired mi-
crofiber surfaces
Fig. 9 shows the WCAs of gecko-inspired mi-
crofiber surfaces with different dimensional parameters
and duty ratios (fs). All the gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces exhibited hydrophobicity, more than 130˚,
while the flat PDMS surface was about 110˚. The WCA
of sample P-8-28-20 was even 155.0 ± 2.2˚, displaying
superhydrophobicity. This phenomenon could be ex-
plained using Cassie-Baxter equation[32]
cosθr = fs cosθ − (1− fs), (6)
where θr and θ are the contact angles of water on
roughness surface and smooth surface, respectively. fs is
duty ratio as defined in 2.2.
The contact angle of PDMS with smooth surface
was 111.4˚. On the basis of Cassie–Baxter equation,
Water contact angle (˚)
Duty ratio f5 (%)
Fig. 9 Water contact angles on gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces
with different dimensional parameters and duty ratio fs. Sample
P-8-28-20 showed the superhydrophobicity. The insets represent
images of water droplets during measurements.
 Qu et al.: Fabrication and Characterization of Gecko-inspired Dry Adhesion,
Superhydrophobicity and Wet Self-cleaning Surfaces
the contact angle of PDMS with microfiber increased
with the decrease in fs. Correspondingly, the smallest fs
of sample P-8-28-20, 7.40%, resulted in the biggest
WCA (155.0 ± 2.2˚). The mechanism of enhanced hy-
drophobicity for gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces was
due to the air gaps between the water drop and the sur-
face, which could significantly decrease the contact area
(fs) between water and the solid surface of PDMS. In this
case, water droplets would keep spherical as much as
possible influenced by surface tension, and resulted in
the increase of WCA finally[33–35].
According to the WCA of water on the flat PDMS
surface and the fs (Table 1) of gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces, the theoretical WCA of gecko-inspired mi-
crofiber surfaces could be calculated by Eq. 6. For ex-
ample, the calculated WCA of sample P-8-28-20 was
162.5˚, closing to the test result (155.0 ± 2.2˚). Addi-
tionally, it could be found that the smaller the diameter
of the microfiber was, the stronger hydrophobic property.
The WCA of sample P-10-20-20 was larger than that of
sample P-20-40-20, though they had the same fs value.
Hence, the present result indicated that the finer mi-
crofibers might be benefit to improve the hydrophobic
property of surface.
The Sliding Angle (SA) is another important index
of superhydrophobic surfaces, which reflects the sliding
behavior of water droplet on a surface and also is called
hysteresis. Fig. 10 shows the relationship among the SA,
the geometry dimension and fs of gecko-inspired
Duty ratio f5 (%)
Sliding angle (˚)
Fig. 10 Sliding angles on gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces with
different dimensional parameters and duty ratios fs. The results
show that the sample P-8-28-20 has the smallest sliding angle.
The insets represent images of sliding water droplets during
measurements. The insets of control show that the droplets on the
flat PDMS surface do not roll even when the substrate is turned
upside down.
139
microfiber surfaces. The SAs increased with fs. The SA
of sample P-8-28-20 was 7.2 ± 1.2˚, the lowest among all
samples. It indicated that water droplet sliding easily on
sample P-8-28-20. The SA of the flat PDMS surface was
larger than 90˚ as shown in the inset of Fig. 10, which
indicated that a water droplet did not slide on the flat
PDMS surface, even when the surface was tilted at 90˚
or turned upside down. The different sliding phenomena
could be explained by the continuity of three-phase
(solid–liquid–air) contact line[36]. In general, there are
energy barriers for the sliding movement of a water
droplet, which cause contact angle hysteresis[36]. If the
contorted, discontinuous contact line was formed be-
tween the water droplet and solid surface, e.g. roughness
and heterogeneous composition, the energy barriers can
be reduced[23,36]. Because of the microfibers on the sur-
face, the gecko-inspired microfiber surface was rough
and the three-phase contact line between the gecko-
inspired microfiber surface and water droplet was dis-
continuous. It indicated that the energy barriers of
gecko-inspired microfibers would be decreased and
resulted in a water droplet slide easily on gecko-inspired
microfibers and a smaller SA.
3.5 Wet self-cleaning ability
Fig. 11 shows the optical images of gecko-inspired
microfiber surfaces contaminated with silica particles
and washed with water. An obvious trace was found
after the droplet rolling off the tilted gecko-inspired
microfiber surface, and the contamination particles were
cleaned up by the droplets. But the droplet did not roll
and the contamination particles were still adhesive on
the flat PDMS surface after washed with water. There
were no visible contamination particles on the droplet
track for sample P-8-28-20 (Fig. 11a), but there were
residual contamination particles on sample P-10-20-20
(Fig. 11c). Fig. 12 shows the quantitative wet self-
cleaning efficiency and the typical optical images of
sample P-8-28-20 and control PDMS before and after
wet self-cleaning. In contrast to the flat PDMS surface
(Figs. 12d and 12e), all the gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces exhibited better wet self-cleaning abilities.
Especially, sample P-8-28-20 exhibited 91.3% wet self-
cleaning efficiency. As shown in Fig. 12c, negligible
contamination particles were observed on sample
P-8-28-20 after washed by water droplet. It showed that
the gecko-inspired microfiber surface with smaller
 140 Journal of Bionic Engineering (2016) Vol.13 No.1

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

3 mm 3 mm 3 mm 3 mm 3 mm

Fig. 11 Optical images of contaminated gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces (a, b, c, d) and the control surface (e) after washed with
deionized water, respectively. (a) Sample P-8-28-20; (b) sample P-10-30-20; (c) sample P-10-20-20; (d) sample P-20-40-20; (e) control, a
flat PDMS surface.

(b) (c)
Self-cleaning efficiency (%)

200 µm 200 µm

(d) (e)

200 µm 200 µm

Fig. 12 Wet self-cleaning efficiencies of gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces and the typical optical images of residual silica particles on
contaminated gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces and the control surface after wet self-cleaning experiments. (a) Wet self-cleaning effi-
ciencies of gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces; (b) and (c) optical images of sample P-8-28-20 before and after wet self-cleaning; (d) and
(e) optical images of control flat PDMS before and after wet self-cleaning.

diameter exhibited higher outstanding wet self-cleaning
property, which was in good agreement with the result of
sliding angle shown in Fig. 10.
It is explicit that constructing microfibers on sur-
face can improve effectively the wet self-cleaning effi-
ciency of the surface. Tuteja et al.[37] found that a pre-
defined rough surface with gradually decreasing surface
energy or increasing equilibrium contact angle could
create a transition between two contact interfaces. One
was a fully wet interface that conformed to the Wenzel
model, and the other was a solid-air composite interface
that conformed to the Cassie model. The large contact
area between the liquid and solid in the Wenzel state
leaded to high contact angle hysteresis (high sliding
angle), which did not allow water droplets to readily roll
off the rough surface. By contrast, a composite interface
of the Cassie state facilitated both non-wetting (high
apparent contact angle) as well as easy water droplet
roll-off because of the small total contact area between
the water droplet and the solid substrate[38]. Subse-
quently, the solid particles could be removed by rolling
off water droplet under the Cassie state[39]. Therefore,
the microfibers were advantage to form a solid-air
composite interface to improve the wet self- cleaning
ability of surfaces. The superhydrophbic combined with
small hysteresis would endow the wet self-cleaning
ability for gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces.
4 Conclusion
In this study, gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces
have been fabricated by combining ICP and micro-mold
casting. The effect of roughness and surface energy of
counterface on the adhesive force of gecko-inspired
microfiber surfaces, and the contact angle, sliding angle
and wet self- cleaning efficiency of the gecko-inspired
microfiber surfaces were investigated.
(1) The optimization mixing ratio of curing agent to
base agent was 1:7.5 to fabricate the gecko-inspired
microfiber surfaces due to the highest mechanical
strength and the highest cross-linking density.
(2) The gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces showed
the dimensional stability and there was no entanglement
and collapse among the microfibers. Compared with flat
PDMS, gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces showed
 Qu et al.: Fabrication and Characterization of Gecko-inspired Dry Adhesion,
Superhydrophobicity and Wet Self-cleaning Surfaces
considerable higher adhesive force with the increase in
preload. Reducing the diameter or increasing the aspect
ratio of microfiber would enhance the adhesive forces,
which could be explained by their higher fiber densities
and larger contact areas.
(3) The adhesion of gecko-inspired microfiber
surfaces was affected by the roughness or surface ener-
gies of the counterfaces. The roughness of counterfaces
would influence the contact area and interlocking
mechanism. The typical SEM images of interface be-
tween counterfaces with different roughness and gecko-
inspired microfiber surfaces revealed the matched and
dis-matched contact directly. The gecko-inspired mi-
crofiber surface got the larger adhesive force on the
higher surface energy counterface, which is in consistent
with JKR theory.
(4) The smaller dimension and lower duty ratio of
microfibers on PDMS resulted in the increase in WCA
and the decrease in SA compared to those of smooth
PDMS. Moreover, the WCA and SA of sample
P-8-28-20 were 155˚ and 7˚, respectively, which showed
the superhydrophobicity. This superhydrophobicity
combined with the smallest SA would endow the best
wet self-cleaning ability for sample P-8-28-20. Water
droplets could roll off easily on the gecko-inspired mi-
crofiber surfaces. It could remove the contamination
particles from the gecko-inspired microfiber surfaces.
Quantitative experiment tests showed that the wet
self-cleaning ability of sample P-8-28-20 was more than
90%.
Acknowledgement
The present study was supported by the National
Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, No.
2012CB933602), National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Nos.51372210 and 51203130), Research Fund
for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China
(No. 20130184110023), Construction Program for In-
novative Research Team of University in Sichuan
Province (No. 14TD0050), and a research fund from
HKRITA (No. ITP-006-10TP).
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