Fullerene Science and Technology, 5(4), 727-745 (1997)

Carbon atoms catalyse fullerene growth

B. R. Eggen (a), M. I. Heggie (a), G. Jungnickel (b), C. D. Latham (c), R. Jones (c), P. R. Briddon (d)

(a) School of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, University of Sussex at Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9QJ, UK

(b) Institut für Physik, Theoretische Physik III, Technische Universität, D-01079 Chemnitz, Germany

(c) Department of Physics, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QL, UK

(d) Department of Physics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NE1 7RU, UK

Abstract

The fullerene road to C₆₀ must proceed through isomers which do not obey the Isolated Pentagon Rule (IPR).  Stone Wales (SW) transformations are required to redistribute the pentagons to obtain the almost exclusively observed IPR icosahedral C₆₀.  We find a very high barrier for these transformations (over 6 eV), which make their occurrence rare during the annealing phase of C₆₀ formation.  Earlier we reported that the presence of a loosely bound single carbon atom reduces this barrier to 3.9 eV, making frequent pentagon rearrangements possible.  Here we review this process and show how carbon atoms bind preferentially to paired pentagon regions, diffuse easily and exchange with C₆₀ host atoms.

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