Nano-velcro could hold objects together as tightly as a strong adhesive, say US researchers. The reusable material is carpeted with hook-ended carbon tubes, each just millionths of a millimetre across and could fasten components in ultra-small robots. The researchers estimate that nano-velcro would be about 30 times stronger than conventional epoxy adhesives. It would bond most solids together so powerfully that the materials themselves would break before the pads of hooks came apart. It would also be about 3,000 times stronger than a microscopic version of Velcro made by carving tiny hooks into silicon wafers. Tom√ɬ°nek's team calculates that two hooks can straighten out enough to be pulled apart if yanked sufficiently hard, but that they spring back into place, unharmed, once separated. When pushed back together, the hooks link up again. The energy stored as the hooks bend while separating heats them to around 1,000°C when they spring back into place. But nanotubes are robust enough to withstand this without breaking, and are very good at conducting heat away from their ends. Unfortunately, no one has yet found a way to grow carbon nano-hooks en masse routinely. Individual ones were first created nearly ten years ago, and some researchers have managed to grow entire forests of them, but not to order. More hardcore Nanotechshit here: http://home.earthlink.net/~trimmerw/mems/jmems_abstracts.html Source: Nature.com