AVS 52nd International Symposium
    Nanometer-Scale Science and Technology Thursday Sessions
       Session NS-ThA

Paper NS-ThA10
Measurement of the Young's Moduli of Individual Electrospun Nanofibers

Thursday, November 3, 2005, 5:00 pm, Room 210

Session: Nano Processing
Presenter: L.M. Bellan, Cornell University
Authors: L.M. Bellan, Cornell University
J. Kameoka, Texas A&M University
H.G. Craighead, Cornell University
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Our measurements of the Young's moduli of individual electrospun polymer nanofibers support previous claims that electrospinning can produce polymer fibers with high degrees of molecular orientation. Electrospinning is a technique for fabricating micro- and nanoscale fibers using a strong electric field to extract a jet from a viscous solution. These fibers may be oriented by depositing them on a rotating substrate. We have used this technique to deposit oriented polyethylene oxide and silica glass nanofibers over trenches etched in silicon. The suspended fibers were depressed using an atomic force microscope, and the resulting force-displacement data was used to determine the Young's moduli of the individual fibers. The Young's moduli of the polyethylene oxide fibers were significantly larger than the reported values for polyethylene oxide bulk and films, which supports previous claims of molecular orientation in the fibers. The Young's moduli of the glass fibers were consistent with values calculated from previously measured mechanical resonance frequencies of similar fibers. We are currently investigating mechanical properties of individual nanofibers spun from other polymers.