Date of Award

6-2012

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Physics and Astronomy

First Advisor

Seyfollah Maleki

Language

English

Keywords

electrospinning, fibers, nanofiber, polymer, electric field

Abstract

Electrospinning is a process of generating polymer fibers by accelerating a polymer solution through an electric field. The polymer solution is released at a designated rate through a syringe; once the droplet enters the high voltage region, it whips throughout the chamber, landing upon a grounded collector. This procedure results in fibers with a range of diameter from several nanometers to a few micrometers. These fibers can be used in a variety of applications, including drug delivery, filter media, material substrates, optical media, tissue scaffolds, and wound dressing. For my senior thesis, I established the most successful method of creating nanofibers and documented the qualities and characteristics of these fibers using optical microscopy. I investigated creating polymer fibers using different solutes and experimented with gold nano-particles additives. In my future experiments, I want to generate nanofibers with other additives such as carbon and quantum dots and measure the physical characteristics, both optically and electrically.

Download

Included in

Physics Commons

Share

COinS