Carbon nanowires generated by ion irradiation of hydrocarbon ices

In this paper we present the formation of carbon nanowires (polyynes and polycumulenes) in the solid state by ion irradiation of frozen hydrocarbons (C6H6 and C2H2). Irradiations have been performed using H+ ions in the 100’s keV energy regime using fluences up to 5 × 1014 ions/cm2. Beyond the intrinsic significance of these results in the field of material science, this work has been motivated by the fact that ion beam irradiation of hydrocarbon ices is one of the most important process thought to happen in several extraterrestrial environments where many spectroscopic features of polyyne molecules have been identified.