Regenerative Soot-I: Carbon cluster formation in regenerative sooting plasmas

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation and characteristics of large carbon clusters in regenerative sooting plasmas, revealing mechanisms of cluster creation and recycling in a specialized plasma environment.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup for producing and analyzing large carbon clusters in regenerative soot plasmas, including velocity spectra measurements.

Findings

Identification of mechanisms in soot plasmas

Measurement of velocity spectra of carbon clusters

Demonstration of cluster formation up to thousands of atoms

Abstract

Laboratory formation of large carbon clusters with m C atoms where m could be up to few thousand, in carbonaceous plasma, has been studied by using an especially designed ion source. Carbon is introduced into the glow discharge plasma by sputtering of the graphite electrode. Soot dominated plasma is created whose constituents are carbon clusters. It produces and recycles cluster containing plasma. Regenerative sooting plasma creates the environment in which the entire spectrum of clusters that contain the linear chains, rings and fullerenes. Velocity spectra of the extracted clusters have been measured with an ExB filter. These spectra indicate and identify the mechanisms operating in the soot.