The formation mechanism of carbon onions is investigated. The microstructure of onions formed using pulsed-laser deposition is found to depend critically on the background gas pressure. Molecular dynamics simulations show that an optimal annealing temperature of 40000.3em0exK is required to form well-ordered onions (concentric fullerene-like spheres), in agreement with experiment. The onions form from the outer layer first, and a model is presented in which the background pressure must be sufficient to allow atoms to cluster, yet low enough to allow annealing into well-ordered onions.
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Lau et al. (2007) studied this question.