Textiles and fibers are everywhere, making up a large part of our daily lives. Globally, this industry produces 100 million tons of fiber material each year. In the US, the value of fiber and filament, textiles and apparels totaled over $77 billion. Materials come from natural fibers such as cotton, and wool, and a wide variety of synthetic fibers polyesters and microfibers. Advances to the manufacturing of fibers for high-tech applications include electrospinning. Fibers produced from this method can be woven into textiles or used as scaffolding in tissue engineering.
As fiber demands increase, the need for efficient ways to test product quality has changed. The past methods for evaluating quality have become outdated with the advancement of nanofiber materials. The following application notes are examples of improvements to fiber analysis with scanning electron microscopy. Generation of fibers electrospinning and how roughness, coating quality, and friction properties can be measured by optical profilometry.