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Summary: Cooperative Adhesion and Friction of
Compliant Nanohairs
Liehui Ge,
Lijie Ci,
Anubha Goyal,
Rachel Shi,
L. Mahadevan,§
P. M. Ajayan,
and
Ali Dhinojwala*,
Department of Polymer Science, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325, United States,
Department of
Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, United States, and §
School
of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
ABSTRACT The adhesion and friction behavior of soft materials, including compliant brushes and hairs, depends on the temporal
and spatial evolution of the interfaces in contact. For compliant nanofibrous materials, the actual contact area individual fibers make
with surfaces depends on the preload applied upon contact. Using in situ microscopy observations of preloaded nanotube hairs, we
show how nanotubes make cooperative contact with a surface by buckling and conforming to the surface topography. The overall
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