Synthesis of Heavy Carbon Clusters by Laser Ablation in Vacuum

It has been found that heavy carbon clusters can be produced by laser ablation in vacuum with no ambient gases. The synthesis of heavy clusters is obtained when a copolymer of ethylene and tetrafluoroethylene is employed as the target material for laser ablation. Time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used for analyzing ionic species produced by laser ablation. The significant temporal evolution of carbon cluster ions was observed even though no ambient gases were injected into the vacuum chamber. At ∼ 10 µs after the irradiation of the laser pulse, we detected a large amount of carbon cluster ions Cn + with n up to 400.