Patent US 10,406,723 has been released discussing the production of internal particles with precise dimensional control in fibers. One or more axial cores in a thermally-drawn fiber can be broken up into spheres by passing the fiber through a hot zone. The heat creates interfacial instabilities between the cores and their surrounding material. These instabilities lead to the formation of molten core droplets. The speed at which the fiber is fed throught the hot zone can control the size of the spheres with a given core radius and temperature profile. Out of the hot zone, the molten spheres solidify and new characteristics can be infered to the fiber such as doped polarities in two different cores enabling the creation of periodic electronic devices along a fiber such as transistor devices. More information about the patent is provided here.
