Single cell bacterial oscillators

Life at low-Reynolds numbers regime is intriguing. Single motile bacteria are known to exhibit erratic behaviour; they swim in what is known as a random walk, alternating between periods of swimming straight and abrupt moments of re-orientation. Yet in dense populations, cells of E.coli have been reported to exhibit weak synchronization and self...

Grip on wet interfaces: an experimental study on the role of drainage

Drainage of fluid from wet adhesive-substrate interfaces is often mentioned to be an important mechanism in obtaining strong grip. It has been hypothesized that micropatterned adhesives – that contain features (e.g., pillars) separated by channels on their surface – have a better drainage capability compared to unpatterned adhesives....

Friction Forces of Micropatterned Elastomers with Carbon Fibre Fabric Reinforcement on Soft Substrates

Gecko-inspired adhesives mimic the external structure of geckos with micropatterned surfaces and the internal structure by fabric reinforcement in soft elastomer adhesive pads. Previous research measured the friction forces of synthetic adhesives, with either an external or internal structure, mainly on hard substrates. Much less is known about...

Pull-off and friction forces of micropatterned elastomers on soft substrates: The effects of pattern length scale and stiffness

The adhesiveness of biological micropatterned adhesives primarily relies on their geometry (e.g., feature size, architecture) and material properties (e.g., stiffness). Over the last few decades, researchers have been mimicking the geometry and material properties of biological micropatterned adhesives. The performance of these biomimetic...