A new method for the alignment of electrospun nanofibers by oxygen plasma treatment

An effective way of controlling the alignment of electrospun nanofibers using oxygen plasma treatment was introduced. Poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) was selected as a base material for electrospinning and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was chosen as an electrospun-nanofiber material. It was found that most of PVA nanofibers were selectively deposited on the O2 plasma-treated area of PDMS, while only a few PVA nanofibers were randomly deposited on the untreated area of the PDMS film. Interestingly, a number of PVA nanofibers were neatly aligned along the border of the untreated area and the O2 plasma-treated area of PDMS. The surface structures and the morphology of the PDMS films with PVA nanofibers were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, water contact angle measurements, and X-ray photon spectroscopy. By selecting the optimized ratio of treated and untreated area of PDMS film, it was found that more than 80{\%} of PVA nanofibers could be deposited parallel to the border of the treated and untreated area of PDMS. We used PVA as a reference material for the nanofiber alignment in this study, but similar deposition behavior was also observed for polyurethane (PU) fibers.