Alignment of electrospun fibers using the whipping instability

•A novel and effective collecting system has been developed to fabricate highly aligned fibers.•The whipping electrospinning jet was utilized to produce uniaxially aligned arrays.•The aligned fibers can be spread over large areas and easily transferred to other substrates.•The proposed method is with ease of use to realize the fiber alignment within a few seconds. A novel and effective collecting system that consists of insulating hollow cylinder and grating-like electrodes has been developed to fabricate highly aligned electrospun fibers. Unlike previous studies, the whipping instability of the electrospinning jet was utilized to produce aligned fibers. Results from many experiments demonstrate that the proposed system is of effectiveness and ease to confine the charged fibers inside the cylinder and stretch them to span across the gaps and thus to become uniaxially aligned arrays over large areas. This work is believed to provide a new insight into the use of the chaotic nature of electrospinning for the preparation of high-performance aligned fibers for a myriad of applications.