The impact of micron size patterns on adhesion has been widely investigated during the last decade, and the mechanical analysis of the underlying mechanisms for adhesion enhancement through micropatterning starts to be unraveled, especially when the patterns formed on one of the surfaces are soft and deformable (1; 2; 3). This is far from being the case for the role of patterning on friction, despite the potential practical importance of producing surfaces with adjusted friction properties. If both experimental and more theoretical approaches, through numerical simulations, have been developed to try understanding the impact of roughness at nano and micrometric scales on the friction at solid - liquid interfaces (4; 5), and if it is well understood that roughness is responsible for the independence of the friction coefficient versus the apparent contact between two solids, very little is known for the impact of surface roughness in the case of soft rubbers contact.
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