Ion beam-induced formation of carbon nanofibers from decacyclene

Abstract

Vapor deposition of decacyclene, a polycyclic aromatic compound, under vacuum on a flat plate resulted in rapid formation of cylindrical decacyclene whiskers with a layered structure and with lengths and uniform diameters of 1–20 μm and 20–100 nm, respectively. The whiskers were converted to conducting amorphous carbon nanofibers by ion-beam irradiation at ambient temperature. Observation of the SEM images of the whiskers revealed that the growing whiskers were floated on the surfaces of supercooled decacyclene liquid droplets, and the diameter of each whiskers were kept constant during the growth by attractive and repulsive interactions between the liquid and surfaces of the whiskers parallel and perpendicular to the layer, respectively. Cyclic voltammetry of the carbon nanofibers in 1 mol/dm 3 Na 2SO 4 showed the electrical capacitance of 41 F/g, which is comparable to the capacitance of various activated carbon fibers.