Modeling and simulation of coating growth on nanofibers

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This work presents modeling and simulation results of a procedure to coat nanofibers and core-clad nanostructures with thin film materials using plasma enhanced physical vapor deposition. In the experimental effort that motivates the modeling, electrospun polymer nanofibers are coated with metallic materials under different operating conditions to observe changes in the coating morphology. The modeling effort focuses on linking simple models at the reactor, nanofiber, and atomic levels to form a comprehensive model. Numerical simulations that link the concentration field with the evolution of the coating free surface predict that as the Damköhler number is increased the coating morphology changes from a wavy to a nodular to a dendritic needle-type form as observed experimentally.