Carbon nanoparticle film is hard, elastic

Researchers in England have created tough, flexible thin films of pure carbon by depositing carbon nanoparticles onto a substrate at high velocity. The hardness and elasticity of the films suggest that a "qualitatively new form of carbon thin film is obtained," according to the group [ Nature , 383 , 321 (1996)]. The work was carried out by a team of electrical engineers and materials scientists at the University of Liverpool, led by electrical engineering professor Gehan Amaratunga, in collaboration with industrial partner Multi-Arc Inc., Rockaway, N.J. The 500-nm-thick films consist of fragments of carbon nanotubes and carbon "onions" linked together by strong diamond-like tetrahedral sp 3 bonds. Carbon nanotubes are nanometer-wide needlelike cylindrical tubes of concentric graphitic carbon capped by fullerene-like hemispheres, whereas carbon onions are spherical particles consisting of concentric shells of graphitic carbon. "The matrix between the graphitic nanoparticles seems to be tetrahedral amorpho...