Nanowire-in-microtube structured core/shell fibers via multifluidic coaxial electrospinning

A multifluidic coaxial electrospinning approach is reported here to fabricate core/shell ultrathin fibers with a novel nanowire-in-microtube structure from more optional fluid pairs than routine coaxial electrospinning. The advantage of this approach lies in the fact that it introduces an extra middle fluid between the core and shell fluids of traditional coaxial electrospinning, which can work as an effective spacer to decrease the interaction of the other two fluids. Under the protection of a proper middle fluid, more fluid pairs, even mutually miscible fluids, can be operated to generate "sandwich"-structured ultrathin fibers with a sharp boundary between the core and shell materials. It thereby largely extends the scope of optional materials. Selectively removing the middle layer of the as-prepared fibers results in an interesting nanowire-in-microtube structure. Either homogeneous or heterogeneous fibers with well-tailored sandwich structures have been successfully fabricated. This method is an important extension of traditional co-electrospinning that affords a more universal avenue to preparing core/shell fibers; moreover, the special hollow cavity structure may introduce some extra properties into the conventional core/shell structure, which may find potential applications such as optical applications, microelectronics, and others.