To study the effect of the application of a dc electric or magnetic field on the alignment of VGCFs, a dispersion of uniformly dispersed VGCFs® was prepared. It is known that the stability of the dispersion was affected by the post-preparation condition of the dispersion. Therefore, the influence of post-preparation shear deformation on the induced re-aggregation of uniformly dispersed VGCFs® in silicone oil was examined. The starting dispersion was quite uniform, as shown in Fig. 1(c). Fig. 3 shows a series of photographs detailing the effect of shear deformation for various shear rates on the induced re-aggregation of VGCFs® (0.1 wt.%); the photographs were taken 10 min after the samples were prepared.