Nanofibers with diameter below one nanometer from electrospinning

Sub-nanometer materials have received wide attention due to their unique properties in recent years. Most studies focus on the preparation and properties investigation of the inorganic sub-nanometer materials, while there are few reports on organic especially polymeric sub-nanometer materials such as sub-nanometer fiber due to the obstacles with respect to fabricating such small nanofibers. In this work we prepare PAA nanofibers with diameters ranging from hundreds of nanometers down to sub-nanometer via electrospinning from a polyamic acid (PAA) with ultrahigh molecular weight. The morphologies and size of the electrospun ultrathin nanofibers are characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM images combined with theoretic calculations show that sub-nanometer fiber of approximate 0.17–0.63 nm only containing one molecular chain was generated via electrospinning from ultra-dilute PAA solutions for the first time. These quite small sub-nanometer fibers would open a new area of electrospinning and provide further explorations on the production and application of electrospun sub-nanometer fibers with single molecular chains.