Researchers have created magnetic replicas of sunflower pollen grains using a wet chemical, layer-by-layer process that applies highly conformal iron oxide coatings. The replicas possess natural adhesion properties inherited from the spiky pollen particles while gaining magnetic behavior, allowing for tailored adhesion to surfaces.
By taking advantage of the native pollen grain shape and a non-natural oxide chemistry, this work provides a unique demonstration of tunable, bio-enabled multimodal adhesion. The spikes inherited from sunflower pollen provide short-range adhesion—over nanoscale distances—while the oxide chemistry provides an adhesion mode that operates over much longer distances—up to 1 mm.