anew and effective electrospinning method has been developed for producing aligned polymer nanofibers. the conventional electrospinning technique has been modified to fabricate nanofibers as uniaxially aligned array. the key to the success of this technique is the creation of a rotating jet by using a cylindrical collector in which the needle tip is located at its center. the unique advantage o...

Electrospun nanofibers with uniaxial alignment have recently gained its popularity as scaffolds for neural tissue engineering. Many studies have demonstrated that the nanofibers could guide the neurites to extend along the direction of alignment, resembling the native hierarchy of the nerve tissue. However, the contact cues provided by the nanofibers can be far more complicated than just guidin...

Electrospun carbon nanofibers, produced from polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber precursors, with their superior mechanical properties, are promising candidates for manufacturing advanced polymer composites. Here, we report a series of tensile tests performed in situ under scanning electron microscope (SEM)/transmission electron microscope (TEM) observation, which show that the modulus and streng...

The mechanical instabilities and viscoelastic response of individual multiwalled carbon nanotubes and nanofibers (MWCNTs/Fs) under uniaxial compression are studied with atomic force microscopy. Specific buckling events are evident by regimes of negative stiffness, i.e., marked drops in force with increasing compression. Uniaxial cyclic loading can be repeatedly executed even in initially postbu...

In this study, Silk Fibroin (SF)/Polycaprolactone (PCL) composite nanofiber mats were fabricated using an electrostatic spinning technology employing different drum rotation speeds. The morphology and tensile performance of the resulting nanofiber mats were characterized using thermal field emission scanning electron microscopy, multi-layer image fusion technology, pore size distribution analys...

Cardiac failure is a quite severe condition that can result in life-threatening consequences. Cardiac tissue engineering is thought to be one of the most promising technologies to reconstruct damaged cardiac muscles and facilitate myocardial tissue regeneration. We report a new nanofiber bundle substrate for three-dimensional (3D) cardiac cell culture as a platform to investigate cell morpholog...

Graphene-based sp2-carbon nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes and nanofibers can fail near their ideal strengths due to their exceedingly small dimensions. We have calculated the phonon spectra of graphene as a function of uniaxial tension by density functional perturbation theory to assess the first occurrence of phonon instability on the strain path, which controls the strength of a defec...