Morphological changes of nanofiber cross-sections due to surface tension

Abstract In the manufacturing of soft fibers at small scales, lack of considering the presence of surface tension may cause a significant shape deviation from the desired geometry due to the surface tension-induced fiber deformation. Here we develop an analytic algorithm to calculate the surface tension-induced deformation of soft nanofibers with different cross-section shapes. We prove that the displacement at the fiber circumference is independent of the cross-section size. Numerical examples demonstrate that upon surface tension nanofibers with circular cross-sections undergo radial shrinking and these with non-circular cross-sections are driven to rounder circumferences. Moreover, the surface tension-induced cross-section area change is significant for non-circular soft nanofibers as their radial sizes fall below tens of nanometers.