Nano tape is one of the first developments of
synthetic setae, which arose from a collaboration between the
Manchester Centre for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology, and the Institute for Microelectronics Technology in Russia. Work started in 2001 and two years later results were published in
Nature Materials. The group prepared flexible fibers of polyimide as the synthetic setae structures on the surface of a 5
μm thick film of the same material using electron beam lithography and
dry etching in an oxygen plasma. The fibres were 2 μm long, with a diameter of around 500 nm and a periodicity of 1.6 μm, and covered an area of roughly 1 cm2 (see figure on the left). Initially, the team used a
silicon wafer as a substrate, but found that the tape's adhesive power increased by almost 1,000 times if they used a soft bonding substrate such as Scotch tape. This is because the flexible substrate yields a much higher ratio of the number of setae in contact with the surface over the total number of setae. The result of this "gecko tape" was tested by attaching a sample to the hand of a 15 cm high plastic Spider-Man figure weighing 40 g, which enabled it to stick to a glass ceiling. The tape, which had a contact area of around with the glass, was able to carry a load of more than . However, the adhesion coefficient was only 0.06, which is low compared with real geckos (8~16). ==Commercial use==