Irradiated Carbon Nanostructures as Nanoscopic Pressure Cells

TL;DR

This paper models how high-dose irradiation causes internal stresses in multi-shell carbon nanostructures, leading to extreme pressures that can affect encapsulated materials, with results aligning well with experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking defect dynamics to internal stress buildup in irradiated carbon nanostructures, explaining pressure effects.

Findings

Model accurately predicts internal stress buildup.

Results agree with experimental data.

Highlights potential for pressure applications in nanotechnology.

Abstract

High-dose irradiation of nanostructures consisting of multiple graphene shells, such as spherical 'carbon onions' (CO) or cylindrical multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT), induces shell shrinkage by bond reconstruction around irradiation-induced defects. This leads to build-up of internal stresses and to extreme pressures acting on encapsulated materials or on the carbon cores of the nanostructures. We formulate a model which relates the build-up of internal stresses to the point defect dynamics in graphene shells. Calculations are performed for the special case of irradiated CO. The results are in good agreement with experimental findings.