Carbon Nanomaterials Under Highly Energetic Heavy Ion Irradiation

The radiation performance of carbon nanomaterials: carbon onions and single-walled carbon nanotubes under highly energetic heavy ion irradiation was investigated, with highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) used as the control. Samples were irradiated with a krypton-86 beam at 142 MeV/nucleon, a krypton-78 beam at 140 MeV/nucleon, and a calcium-48 beam at 140 MeV/nucleon and 70 MeV/nucleon at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. Fundamental structural and chemical modifications were investigated using Micro Raman spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Results indicated that the radiation resiliency of the single-walled carbon nanotubes exceeded that of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, while the carbon onions showed structural modifications of the outer onion layers in the form of faceting and onion fusion.