How To Make Micro/nanofibrous Structures Direct Written On An Insulating Substrate

As a mass of charge accumulates on the deposited nanofiber, it is difficult to achieve patterned deposition on the insulating substrate. Zheng et al. demonstrated direct writing of orderly micro/nanofibrous structures on a flexible insulating polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate utilizing an AC electrical field. The charge transfer characteristics in the jet are changed and the Coulomb repulsive force from the residual charges on the deposited structure is reduced with the help of the applied AC voltage, as shown in Fig. 9.11A and B. Thus a stable jet can be built up and orderly structures, as shown in Fig. 9.11C, can be collected on the PET substrate. From the experimental results, the minimum motion velocity of substrate required to direct write a straight line is 700 mm/s and the line widths of direct-written fibrous structures are in the range of 10-40 μm.