Biomimetic design of new materials uses nature as antetype, learning from billions of years of evolution. This work emphasizes the mechanical and tribological properties of skin, combining both hardness and wear resistance of its surface (the stratum corneum) with high elasticity of the bulk (epidermis, dermis, hypodermis). The key for combination of such opposite properties is wrinkling, being...

Carbon-based systems comprise an impressively broad and continually expanding range of materials, from the building blocks of biology to carbon allotropes with extreme and exotic properties such as nanotubes, buckyballs, graphene1, and diamondoids2. The myriad of stable forms that carbon can adopt is largely because of its ability to hybridize in multiple stable bonding states, and to bond stro...

The tribological protection of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites (CFC) is essential for broadening their use from structural to functional applications, e.g., to linear bearings in mechanical engineering. However, their wear resistance in sliding and rolling contacts is low. This work focusses on the possibility of improving their tribological properties by the application of thin hard m...