Anomalous ESR behavior of carbon nanofilaments grown from palladium seeds

Abstract

We report on the anomalous spin relaxation behavior of conduction electrons in carbon nanofilaments produced by decomposition of acetylene on Pd nanoparticles. Thanks to first-principle calculations, we found that adsorption of Pd above the center of a hexagon in the carbon lattice is energetically favorable, and that π–d orbital interactions probably lead to an efficient spin relaxation mechanism involving spin–orbit coupling. Incorporation of Pd impurities during carbon growth implies that nanofilament length depends on initial particle size, as actually observed.