Characterization of micromanipulator controlled dry spinning of micro- and nanoscale polymer fibers

No current microfabrication technique exists for producing room-temperature, high-precision, point-to-point polymer nanofibers in three dimensions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to characterize a novel method for fabricating such structures. Poly-methylmethacrylate (PMMA) micro- and nano- fibers have been fabricated using a technique which involves drawing a solvated polymer bridge between two liquid pools with a stylus positioned by an ultra-high-precision micromill. The solvent in the solution bridge rapidly evaporates, leaving a suspended PMNIA fiber between the two pools. It was observed that fibers ranging in diameter from 450 nm to 50 mu m were drawn and that fiber diameter increased significantly with increasing solution concentration and increasing polymer molecular weight.