Journal
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Volume 58, Issue 46, Pages 16416-16421Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201907876
Keywords
laser printing; nanofibers; patterning; photothermal effect; welding
Categories
Funding
- NIH [R01 EB020050]
- Georgia Institute of Technology
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We report a simple method for the photothermal welding of nonwoven mats of electrospun nanofibers by introducing a near-infrared (NIR) dye such as indocyanine green. By leveraging the strong photothermal effect of the dye, the nanofibers can be readily welded at their cross points or even over-welded (i.e., melted and/or fused together) to transform the porous mat into a solid film upon exposure to a NIR laser. While welding at the cross points greatly improves the mechanical strength of a nonwoven mat of nanofibers, melting and fusion of the nanofibers can be employed to fabricate a novel class of photothermal papers for laser writing or printing without chemicals or toner particles. By using a photomask, we can integrate photothermal welding with the gas foaming technique to pattern and then expand nonwoven mats into 3D scaffolds with well-defined structures. This method can be applied to different combinations of polymers and dyes, if they can be co-dissolved in a suitable solvent for electrospinning.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available