1 Volume 2018; Issue 01 Biosensors and Bioelectronics Open Access Research Article Ueda A, et al. Biosens Bioelectron Open Acc: BBOA-111. Fabrication and Raman Analysis of Aligned Electrospun PVDF Nanofbers Akira Ueda 1* , Omar Ali 1 , Andrey Zavalin 1 , Sergey Avanesyan 1 , Warren E. Collins 1 , Richard Mu 2 , S. Keith Hargrove 2 1 Center for Physics and Chemistry of Materials, Fisk University, USA 2 TIGER Institute, Tennessee State University, USA * Corresponding authors: Akira Ueda, Research Assistant Professor in Physics, Center for Physics and Chemistry of Materials, Fisk University, Nashville TN 37208, USA. Tel: +16153298684; Email: akiraueda2014@gmail.com; aueda@fsk.edu Richard Mu, TIGER Institute, Tennessee State University, USA. Email: rmu@tnstate.edu Citation: Ueda A, Ali O, Zavalin A, Avanesyan S, Collins WE, et al. (2018) Fabrication and Raman Analysis of Aligned Electro- spun PVDF Nanofbers. Biosens Bioelectron Open Acc: BBOA-111. DOI: 10.29011/BBOA-111. 100011 Received Date: 26 December, 2017; Accepted Date: 06 January, 2018; Published Date: 12 January, 2018 Abstract We have fabricated uniaxially aligned Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) nanofbers by electrospinning technique in order to investigate the molecular confguration by using Raman spectroscopy. PVDF is a piezoelectric and pyroelectric material in the β-phase molecular confguration, and it is recently found the way to align nanofbers by using a set of grounded electrodes during electrospinnig. We have developed a mathematical formalism of analysis for Raman spectroscopy for (1) the signal-to- noise ratio and (2) the degree of β-phase in the phase mixture of PVDF nanofbers. We observed many sharp peaks in the Raman spectra from a single PVDF nanofber, which were not able to see in bulk materials. In order to see the accurate vibration modes, in general, the Raman spectroscopy on nanofber may contribute to the detail analysis of polymers. DOI: 10.29011/BBOA-111. 100011 Abstract We have fabricated uniaxially aligned Polyvinylidene Fluo- ride (PVDF) nanofbers by electrospinning technique in order to investigate the molecular confguration by using Raman spec- troscopy. PVDF is a piezoelectric and pyroelectric material in the β-phase molecular confguration, and it is recently found the way to align nanofbers by using a set of grounded electrodes during electrospinnig. We have developed a mathematical formalism of analysis for Raman spectroscopy for (1) the signal-to-noise ratio and (2) the degree of β-phase in the phase mixture of PVDF nano- fbers. We observed many sharp peaks in the Raman spectra from a single PVDF nanofber, which were not able to see in bulk ma- terials. In order to see the accurate vibration modes, in general, the Raman spectroscopy on nanofber may contribute to the detail analysis of polymers. Introduction Electrospinning has been used as a simple and versatile method for drawing fbers from several kinds of polymer solutions. In a typical process, the polymeric fuid is extruded from the ori- fce of a needle to form a small droplet in the presence of a strong electric feld. When the electric feld is sufciently strong, charges built up on the surface of the droplet will overcome the surface tension to induce the formation of a liquid jet that is subsequently accelerated toward a grounded metal plate (the collector). As the solvent is evaporating, the liquid jet is stretched to produce con- tinuous and thin fbers of the polymer. By using a syringe pump, it is possible to continuously feed the liquid in order to obtain fbers in a relatively short time. (Figure 1(a)) shows a typical setup of electrospinning. In this case, the electrospun fbers are often collected as randomly oriented structures in the form of nonwoven mats or membranes. Although these mats are of great interest for applications that include textur- ing, composite reinforcement, membrane-based separation, sen- sor, enzyme immobilization, and tissue engineering [1,2,3], these disordered structures may not be used for device fabrications such as microelectronics and photonics. For this reason, well-aligned and ordered structures are required [4,5,6]. D. Li et al. initiated [7] that the control of the spatial orienta- tion of electrospun nanofbers by using a set of separated grounded metal or semiconducting plates as the collector, as schematically shown in (Figure 1(b)). Their explanation of this efect is as fol- lows: At the gap of two separated collecting plate edges, the elec- tric feld becomes opposite directions. Just before an electrospun