Ions induced modifications of carbon based nanomaterials

Carbon based materials including nanostructured carbons are important materials  for electrical/electronic applications. They have conductivity varying from insulators to  intermediate conductivity to conductors resulting in  wide range of applications in electronic chips and extreme  environment of radiations among others. We have studied irradiation induced modifications in many carbon based materials including radiation induced nanostructure formations on surfaces besides  sputtering from surfaces.. These include angular sputtering and nano hillock/ crater formations in Highly Oriented Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) surface, Energetic ion  induced annealing at lower fluences in advance carbon based materials such as  C60 and C70, carbon nanotubes, graphene and graphene oxide has  been observed. The annealing effects are in contrast to the normal  defect production observed at high ion fluences. Theoretical understanding of these effects  using inelastic thermal spike (i-TS) model is discussed. The Raman studies have shown a decrease in  disorder parameter at lower irradiation fluences showing the radiation stability of graphene under SHI irradiation and hence its suitability for applications in extreme radiation  conditions.