Programmable adhesion through triangular and hierarchical cuts in metamaterial adhesives

Metamaterial design approaches, which integrate structural elements into material systems, enable the control of uncommon behaviours by decoupling local and global properties. Leveraging this conceptual framework, metamaterial adhesives incorporate nonlinear cut architectures into adhesive films to achieve unique combinations of adhesion capacity, release, and spatial tunability by controlling how cracks propagate forward and in reverse directions during separation. Here, metamaterial adhesive designs are explored with triangular cut features while integrating hierarchical and secondary cut patterns among primary nonlinear cuts. Both cut geometry and secondary cut features tune adhesive force capacity and energy of separation. Importantly, the size and spacing of cut features must be designed around a critical length scale. When secondary cut features are greater than a critical length, cracks can be steered in multiple directions, going both forward and backwards within a primary attachment element. This control over crack dynamics enhances the work of separation by a factor of 1.5, while maintaining the peel force relative to a primary cut. If hierarchical cut features are too small or too compliant, they interact and do not distinctly modify crack behaviour. This work highlights the importance of adhesive length scales and stiffness for crack control and attachment characteristics in adhesive films.This article is part of the theme issue 'Origami/Kirigami-inspired structures: from fundamentals to applications'.