Effective metal mold method for the production of bionic adhesives based on electrochemical modifications

Abstract

Bionic adhesives with tip-expanded microstructural arrays have attracted considerable interest owing to their high adhesive performance at low preloads. Their mainstream manufacturing method is molding. Due to most molds are made of silicon or silicon-based soft templates, and have poor wear resistant or vulnerability to high temperature, limiting their use in large-scale manufacturing. Nickel is widely used as an embossing mold in the micro/nano-imprint industrial process owing to its good mechanical properties. However, the processing of metal molds for the fabrication of tip-expanded microstructural arrays is extremely challenging. In this study, using electrodeposition techniques, the shape of the micropores is modified to obtain end-controlled pores. The effect of the non-uniformity of the electric field on the microporous morphology in the electrodeposition process is systematically investigated. Furthermore, the mechanism of non-uniformity evolution of the microporous morphology is revealed. The optimized microporous metal array is used as a mold to investigate the cavity evolution laws of the elastic cushions under pre-load during the manufacturing process. As a result, typical bionic adhesives with tip-expansion are obtained. Moreover, corresponding adhesion mechanics are analyzed. The results show that electrochemical modifications have broad application prospects in the fabrication of tip-expanded microstructures, providing a new method for the large-scale fabrication of bionic adhesives based on metal molds.