Production of fullerenes in gas discharge plasmas. I. Kinetics of fullerene formation from polycyclic structures

A model is proposed for the formation of fullerenes from three-ring structu res. It is shown that under arc discharge conditions, fullerenes are more e fficiently formed through the capture of C-2 molecules from the surrounding space by a growing cluster. A system of equations is written down for calc ulating the kinetics of fullerene structure formation under these assumptio ns and is then used in some calculations. (C) 1999 American Institute of Ph ysics. [S1063-7842(99)02309-0].