Electrospinning of continuous aligned polymer fibers

Electrospinning is a technique employed for preparing polymer fibers having diameters in the range of 10 mum-10 nm using high electrostatic field. In this letter, we report the formation of aligned polymer fibers, several centimeters in length, with separation between the fibers in the range of 5-100 mum. Achieving alignment is an important step toward the exploitation of these fibers in applications. We have employed about 4500 V and a separation distance of about 1-3 cm between the electrodes. Smaller distance between electrodes, we believe, provides better control on the formation of the fibers. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.