Simulations on the effects of confinement and Ni-catalysis on the formation of tubular fullerene structures from peapod precursors

We applied the recently developed reactive force field (ReaxFF) to study the dynamics of tubular fullerene formation process starting from C₆₀-buckyball/nanotube peapod structures. We found that the space confinement provided by the single-wall nanotube encapsulating the buckyballs is of critical importance to this coalescence reaction. We also simulated the effects of Ni particles on the coalescence process and found a significant reduction of the reaction initiation temperature in the presence of these catalysts. One important quantity is the energy barrier of forming a 4-membered ring between adjacent buckyballs. This barrier is lowered by 40% with the aid of Ni-catalysis. This research can help the community to gain a better understanding of the complicated growth processes in fullerene systems.