Fabrication and characterization of II-VI semiconductor nanoparticles decorated electrospun polyacrylonitrile nanofibers.

Semiconductor nanoparticles incorporated highly aligned electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) composite nanofibers were obtained via a simple, scalable and low-cost dip coating technique at room temperature. The resultant PAN nanofibers exhibited good incorporation of CdS, ZnS and CoS semiconductor nanoparticles. The detailed characterizations of these composite nanofibers were investigated. The incorporation of semiconductor nanoparticles on the surfaces of PAN nanofibers were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis. The current-voltage (I-V) characteristics revealed that the electrical conductivity of these composite nanofibers were higher than that of the pristine PAN nanofibers. Overall, the feasibility of obtaining uniformly dispersed semiconductor nanoparticles on PAN nanofibers can be utilized for the realization of various nanotechnological device applications.