The Growth and the Death of Carbon Fuller~nes and Nanotubes

Calculations based on a.n ab initio total energy functional are used to study the recently discovered all-carbon fullerene clusters, such as the buckyball, and nanotubes. Molecular dynamics simulations show that fnllerenes are very resilient when subject to binary collisions or exposed to heat. The growth of multi-shell structures is shown to be aided by covalent bonds between the edges of neighboring shells. The fragmentation dynamics of fullerenes and nanotubes, which proceeds via transformation into carbon chains, provides new insight into the fonnation process of these intriguing systems.