Fig. 1

NHLBI passive guidewire design schematic. a The core of the guidewire consists of 10 cm nitinol rod segments (light blue) joined by 5 mm nitinol connectors (dark blue) for stiffness matching. b Each nitinol connector has notched ends that join two inserted nitinol rods. A full-length (260 cm) guidewire has 25 such connectors. c The segmented-core is jacketed with a braided polymer jacket (brown) for support. A soft polymer (black) is melted over the jacketed core as a final layer