Nowadays, optical signalling, deep tissue imaging, and information transmission and processing rely on infrared wavelengths. One dimensional organic nanomaterials exhibit very interesting structural and chemico-physical properties. In particular polymer nanofibers have raised increasing interest for application to textiles, micro-electro mechanical systems, sensing and filtration, fluidics, scaffolds, and optoelectronics. Polymer nanofibers can be fabricated by diverse methods, but practically only electrospinning is suitable in terms of low cost and high throughput production. The electrospinning is based on the electrostatic repulsion among surface charges to continuously reduce the diameter of a viscoelastic jet.
By electrospinning, we produce infrared light-emitting nanofibers, which are particularly interesting for applications to communication networks, bio-sensing and diagnostics based on photonic technologies. The nanofibers are composed by organic dyes in inert plastic matrices, with diameters down to a few tens of nm and photoluminescence emission around 850-900 nm.

Absorption and photoluminescence of infrared nanofibers vs. thin films.

For more information, please contact: Dr. Dario Pisignano ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Publications:

[1] A. Camposeo, F. Di Benedetto, R. Stabile, R. Cingolani, D. Pisignano
Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 143115 (2007).