Highlights

Morphology Transitions of C₆₀ Nanocrystals under High Pressure

Scientific Achievement

Hexagonal solvated C₆₀ nanorods and cubic C₆₀ nanosheets were investigated in this proposal. For each kind of sample, both of the pristine and high pressure quenched samples were studied by using transmission electron microscope (TEM). The morphology and crystal structure studies of pristine samples showed that the C₆₀ nanorods are hexagonal close packed (hcp) structure and the C₆₀ nanosheets are face center cubic (fcc) structure. The orientations of the samples were also characterized. A significant lattice expansion was found in solvated C₆₀ nanorods by studying the high resolution TEM studies of the nanorods with different diameters. It was found that both of the C₆₀ nanorods and nanosheets transformed into amorphous structure without obvious morphology change.

Significance

The obtained results of this proposal may not only give us a clear insight of the high pressure transition mechanism in C₆₀ nanocrystals with different morphologies, but also provide a very useful method to synthesize nano scaled amorphous carbon with different shapes. This will open a door for the studies of nanoscaled amorphous carbon material. The results will be published along with the high pressure x-ray diffraction data.

Performers

L. Wang, Y. Ding (Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington)