Mingrun Du

Tailoring Building Blocks and Their Boundary Interaction for the Creation of New, Potentially Superhard, Carbon Materials

A strategy for preparing hybrid carbon structures with amorphous carbon clusters as hard building blocks by compressing a series of predesigned two-component fullerides is presented. In such constructed structures the building blocks and their boundaries can be tuned by changing the starting components, providing a way for the creation of new hard/superhard materials with desirable properties.

Structural Stability and Deformation of Solvated Sm@C2(45)-C90 under High Pressure.

Solvated fullerenes recently have been shown to exhibit novel compression behaviors compared with the pristine fullerenes. However, less attention has been focused on the large cage endohedral metallofullerenes. Here, we have firstly synthesized solvated Sm@C90 microrods by a solution drop-drying method, and then studied the transformations under high pressure. The pressure-induced structural evolutions of Sm@C90 molecules both undergo deformation and collapse. The band gaps of both samples decrease with increasing pressure. The trapped Sm atom plays a role in restraining the compression of the adjacent bonds. The solvent plays a role in protecting Sm@C90 against collapse in the region of 12–20 GPa, decreasing and postponing the change of band gap. Above 30 GPa, the carbon cages collapse. Released from 45 GPa, the compressed solvated Sm@C90 forms a new ordered amorphous carbon cluster (OACC) structure with metal atoms trapped in the units of amorphous carbon clusters, which is different from the OACC structure formed by compressing solvated C60 and C70. This discovery opens the door for the creation of new carbon materials with desirable structural and physical properties when suitable starting materials are selected.

Graphdiyne under pressure: A Raman study

High pressure Raman spectra of graphdiyne (GDY) have been studied up to 34.63 GPa. We found that sp-hybridized carbons in GDY are highly active and start to undergo a bonding change at around 5.2 GPa. Such a bonding change affects the C-C stretching vibration of sp2 hexagon rings in GDY, leading to an anomaly in the corresponding G-band pressure coefficient. A three-dimensional sp2 structure is proposed to form via pressure-induced interlayer cross-linking of sp carbons in GDY and is stable up to at least 34.63 GPa. Our study presents an important example in the study of graphyne family under pressure.High pressure Raman spectra of graphdiyne (GDY) have been studied up to 34.63 GPa. We found that sp-hybridized carbons in GDY are highly active and start to undergo a bonding change at around 5.2 GPa. Such a bonding change affects the C-C stretching vibration of sp2 hexagon rings in GDY, leading to an anomaly in the corresponding G-band pressure coefficient. A three-dimensional sp2 structure is proposed to form via pressure-induced interlayer cross-linking of sp carbons in GDY and is stable up to at least 34.63 GPa. Our study presents an important example in the study of graphyne family under pressure.

Corrigendum: Structural Stability and Deformation of Solvated Sm@C 2 (42)-C 90 under High Pressure

Scientific Reports 6: Article number: 31213; published online: 09 August 2016; updated: 14 December 2016. The original version of this Article contained an error in the title of the paper. “Structural Stability and Deformation of Solvated Sm@C2(45)-C90 under High Pressure”. should read: “Structural Stability and Deformation of Solvated Sm@C2(42)-C90 under High Pressure”.