Crosslinked chitosan-based nanofibers were successfully prepared via electrospinning technique with heat mediated chemical crosslinking followed. The structure, morphology and mechanical property of nanofibers were characterized by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Instron machine, respectively. The results showed that, nanofibers exhibited a smooth surface and regular morphology, and tensile strength of nanofibers improved with increasing of triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) content. (c) 2006 Jun Nie. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society. All rights reserved.