Annealing mechanisms for fullerenes
- Rice Univ., Houston, TX (United States)
Particularly puzzling in the study of fullerenes is the process of fullerene annealing; much evidence suggests that these closed cages must somehow rearrange the connections among the carbons (thus moving around the five and six membered rings), but calculations have shown that the mechanisms thus far proposed have very high energy barriers. Theories of annealing will have direct relevance on many important fullerene problems, including the process of C{sub 60} buckminsterfullerene emerging from the chaos of small carbon clusters, the rationalization of the NMR of higher fullerene which show curious distributions of isomers, and the possibility of fullerene coalescence. To facilitate the study of the dynamic and mutable fullerene surfaces during formation and annealing, we here present all relevant {open_quotes}Tiling{close_quotes} rearrangements of five and six membered rings that are topologically possible. This paper discusses the energy barriers of these rearrangements to make new {open_quotes}maps{close_quotes} of pathways between fullerenes of known experimental importance. The authors show how such maps can explain experimental data and make tentative predictions on the stability of high fullerenes.
- OSTI ID:
- 141503
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-930304--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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