AC-electrospinning Nanofibers from Polymer-CdTe QD Complex Coacervates

Luminescent nanofibers have emerging popularly in our contemporary scientific community because of their potential applications in developing flexible displays, smart wearable fabrics, fluorescent printing, and etc. However, incorporating luminescent materials, such as quantum dots and (in)organic fluorophores, in polymeric fibers remains practically challenging. Here, we have investigated a facile and rapid ac-electrospinning process to fabricate luminescent flexible, ultralong fibers through complex coacervate of polyethylene (PEG) coated CdTe QDs and polyacrylic acid (PAA), where the complex viscoelasticity can be modified by compositions to enable the nanofiber spinning. Polymer-QD composite nanofibers of varied width and length can be controlled by electrospun jets with regulating the applied AC voltage and frequency. Confocal microscopic characterization of the resulting fibers confirms bright green luminescence of the integrated CdTe QDs uniformly distributed along the entire length of the fibers. Ac-voltage and frequency-dependent fiber diameter are also quantified by SEM characterization The current study showcases the exploitation of coacervate solution to assimilate highly photostable QDs in flexible polymer nanofibers for broad biomedical and nanotechnological applications.