Fullerene and nanotube formation in cool terrestrial “dusty plasmas”

The simultaneous generation of dust during the deposition of semiconducting thin films by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition has so far been regarded as a troublesome by-product. However, we present results from recent microstructural investigations of carbonaceous dust particles from a methane precursor that demonstrate that the technique may be suited to generating fullerene molecules, nanotubes, and nanoparticles. Chemical analysis reveals that these particles contain few contaminant species, and we deduce that they nucleated in the plasma, with the carbon ions possibly self-arranging through the action of coulombic forces.