Evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae

By Kellar Autumn, Metin Sitti, Yiching A. Liang, A. M. Peattie, W. Hansen, Simon Sponberg, Thomas W. Kenny, Ronald S. Fearing, J. Israelachvili, Robert J. Full. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2002

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Waalbot: An Agile Small-Scale Wall-Climbing Robot Utilizing Dry Elastomer Adhesives (2007, background): “It has been shown that adhesion is mainly due to molecular forces such as van der Waals forces [16] (from which Waalbot”
Mechanics of hierarchical adhesion structures of geckos (2005, methodology): “As a rough estimate we may choose (e.g., Autumn et al., 2000, 2002) D ¼ 0:6 lm; t ¼ 0:2 lm; l ¼ 2 lm; c ¼ 0:01 J=m2: ð14Þ The stability condition (13) suggests a minimum Young s modulus of 0.15 GPa.”
The Integument of Water-walking Arthropods: Form and Function (2007, background): “van der Waals forces are known to be responsible for strong dry adhesion of gecko setae to smooth surfaces (Autumn et al., 2002) and bundling in carbon nanotube forests (Liew et al.”